[Athen] FW: An experimental federated search of accessible books

Gaeir Dietrich gdietrich at htctu.net
Mon Nov 8 09:53:36 PST 2010


Subject: An experimental federated search of accessible books

Greeting;

The following is somewhat technical if your not into do not worry about it
too much.

One of the great problems we see in alternative media is knowing where a
book is or who might have produced it. This federated search experiment
attempts to address that problem.

A federated search is a single point to search across multiple holdings of
title. To this end I have an experimental z39.50 proxy server running which
will search the following sources:

Association for the Blind of Western Australia braille and talking book
library
Vision Australia braille and talking book library
National Library Service (USA) which hold their own records and those of
RFB&D as well.

There is a webpage where you can try this out at
http://www.guidedogswa.org/tmp/yaz.php

While the web interface works it is slow. I would recommend that you use a
true z39.50 client and direct it to the following:

Server: www.guidedogswa.org
Port: 9000
Database: all

You can also direct your searches to just one of the services by changing
the database:

Association for the Blind of Western Australia: Database: ab
Vision Australia: Database: va
National LIbrary Service: Database: nls

And these libraries which are not part of the "all" database
Libraries Australia: Database la
Library of Congress (USA): database: lc

Please understand that at this point this is a very experimental system
prone to breaking down or going off line without any warning.

Thanks for any comments if you have or know of other libraries holding
collections of alternative media with z39.50 server running I would like to
be able to add those servers to the system. I can also convert collections
of books in spreadsheet form to work in this system as well. If you have any
comments or questions please feel free to contact me.


Gregory Kearney | Manager Accessible Media
Association for the Blind of WA - Guide Dogs WA
PO Box 101, Victoria Park WA 6979 | 61 Kitchener Ave, Victoria Park WA 6100
Tel: 08 9311 8246 | Fax: 08 9361 8696 | www.guidedogswa.com.au
Tel: 307-224-4022 (North America)
Email: greg.kearney at guidedogswa.com.au
Email: gkearney at gmail.com







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