Ted, The Z39.50 gateway is a client–server protocol for searching and retrieving information (http://www.loc.gov/z3950/gateway.html#about) and, as Ben says, generally involves MARC (Machine Readable Cataloging) formatted records entered according to cataloging standards (Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd ed or AACR2). More information on the MARC format can be found at http://www.loc.gov/marc/ . You can also find a discussion of MARCXML and other standards on the Library of Congress (LC) website -- http://www.loc.gov/standards/
Amazon probably stores their data in ONIX, which is a publishing protocol for bibliographic data. While there are crosswalks between the two, differences make it a little difficult to do a complete machine-based transition. Another issue is the crosswalk between the ONIX data and AACR2. My understanding is this will be a little easier once we implement our new standard RDA (Resource Description and Access). My understand also is that ONIX is much more flexible in transcription of bibliographic data than is AACR2. In general, we use the Z39.50 gateway to connect to either other libraries (such as LC) or paid bibliographic utilities (such as OCLC or SkyRiver) to retrieve bibliographic records in MARC format so that we do not have to create the record ourselves. This is called copy cataloging and it saves and enormous amount of time and money. Since the Library of Congress is in the process of developing a replacement format for MARC, Evergreen will have to support at least one other carrier format. Hope this helps Elaine  J. Elaine Hardy PINES Bibliographic Projects and Metadata Manager Georgia Public Library Service, A Unit of the University System of Georgia 1800 Century Place, Suite 150 Atlanta, Ga. 30345-4304 404.235-7128 404.235-7201, fax [email protected] www.georgialibraries.org http://www.georgialibraries.org/pines/ -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ben Shum Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2012 7:50 PM To: Evergreen Discussion Group Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Bar Code Readers, ISBN, and Amazon Hi Ted, I think I've played with the program you've described, it ran on my Macbook, but cost money so I didn't get as far as I would have liked. It probably stores basic item information (simple stuff like title, author, etc.) in a non-MARC format of some kind if it's generating data from outside sources like Amazon. With a full featured ILS like Evergreen (or Koha), information is usually stored in a library format called MARC or some variant, like marcxml in Evergreen's case. While it would be interesting to build something like a scanner to read ISBN of an item and then pre-populate the data into Evergreen from third-party sources like Amazon, I'm not sure how it'd have to be done in practice as far as linking that data back up with internal MARC records. There's certain cataloging rules, etc. that librarians might be able to comment further on (read: I am not a cataloger). There has been talk in the past about projects to give Evergreen more flexibility to support other data formats and not only MARC, but those are just talk right now. As with any open source project though, there's always potential growth for the future, and I'd be curious to see if any others in the community (developers and librarians alike) may think of a feature like the one you've described. Regards, -- Ben On 3/13/2012 3:02 PM, G. T. Stresen-Reuter wrote: > Hi, > > Sorry if this has been addressed elsewhere but I can't find what I'm looking for (read the FAQs, searched the list) and hope someone can help. Part of the problem is I'm not sure what to search for... > > I'm the IT guy at a small school in the Canary Islands. I'm trying to find a new ILS for our tiny library and looking at Evergreen. > > Personally I own a book cataloging system (Delicious Library 2) that can read the ISBN number via my built-in laptop camera, look up the book on Amazon.com, and fill in the database automagically. It's a wonderful system and I'm wondering if anything like that exist for Evergreen (even if it means buying an external bar code reader). > > I've seen references to Z39.50 but it's my impression that that's not exactly the same thing. > > Any pointers? > > Thanks in advance. > > Ted Stresen-Reuter > http://tedmasterweb.com > > -- Benjamin Shum Open Source Software Coordinator Bibliomation, Inc. 32 Crest Road Middlebury, CT 06762 203-577-4070, ext. 113
