Z39.50 Server Configuration

The State Library uses the Voyager library management system supplied by Endeavor Information Systems Inc. This document provides technical information for Z39.50 implementors that is necessary in order to access the State Library Voyager Z39.50 servers. This document assumes a general familiarity with Z39.50.

The State Library Voyager Z39.50 server conforms to Z39.50-1995 (Version 3) of the standard. A subset of attributes from the bib-1 attribute set are supported, and codes from the bib-1 diagnostic set are utilised.

The State Library of Victoria has several production databases. We ask that you use the Main Library Catalogue databases unless you have a specific need for other types of materials.

General information

Contact information

Name:	Anne Beaumont
Email:	helpdesk@slv.vic.gov.au
Phone:	+61 3 8663 7100
Fax:	+61 3 9639 6962
Address:	Technology Services Department, State Library of Victoria, 328 Swanston Street Melbourne, Victoria. 3000. Australia

Conditions of Use

Please view the guidance notes on the use of records in our catalogues before setting up your connection.

Connection details and hours of availability

Database:	Main Collection
Domain name:	titan.slv.vic.gov.au
Port:	7090
Database name:	voyager
Availability:	24 hours a day, 7 days per week. The system is unavailable for about 10 minutes daily at 2.00am EAST for routine maintenance.
Database:	Manuscripts
Domain name:	titan.slv.vic.gov.au
Port:	7290
Database name:	voyager

Availability:	24 hours a day, 7 days per week. The system is unavailable for about 10 minutes daily at 2.00am GMT for routine maintenance.
Database:	Pictures Catalogue - Includes digitised images
Domain name:	titan.slv.vic.gov.au
Port:	7390
Database name:	voyager
Availability:	24 hours a day, 7 days per week. The system is unavailable for about 10 minutes daily at 2.00am GMT for routine maintenance.
Database:	Australiana Indexes
Domain name:	titan.slv.vic.gov.au
Port:	9190
Database name:	voyager
Availability:	24 hours a day, 7 days per week. The system is unavailable for about 10 minutes daily at 2.00am GMT for routine maintenance.
Database:	Victorian Government Publications
Domain name:	titan.slv.vic.gov.au
Port:	8090
Database name:	voyager
Availability:	24 hours a day, 7 days per week. The system is unavailable for about 10 minutes daily at 2.00am GMT for routine maintenance.

Profiles supported

Z39.50-1995 (Version 3) of the standard. A subset of attributes from the bib-1 attribute set are supported, and codes from the bib-1 diagnostic set are utilized.

Target information

Z39.50 services supported

The Voyager server supports the following services:

• initialization
• search
• present

The Scan bit is on in the Voyager Init Response, but Scan is not supported.

Initialization service

Protocol version

• Z39.50-1995 (Version 3)

Options supported

• search
• present

Preferred message size

Voyager will negotiate the client down to 16,000 bytes if requested size exceeds 16,000 bytes, and accept client proposal if it is less than 16,000 bytes.

Maximum record size

Same as Preferred message size above.

ID authentication

User id and password are not required.

Search service

Result set name

Only "default" is supported (case insensitive).

Database names (case insensitive)

Use "voyager".

Element set names

"B" (brief) and "F" (full) supported.

Query

Type-1 only is supported.

Attribute set ID

Bib-1 only is supported.

Operand

The Result set ID (i.e., "default") cannot be used in the Operand. Qualifying searches not supported.

Operators supported

• AND
• OR
• AND-NOT

Record syntaxes

• MARC 21
• OPAC

Searches Allowed
 

Relation attributes supported

Values other than "3" are accepted, but not regarded.

Position attributes supported

Structure attributes supported

Values other than "1" are accepted, but not regarded.

Truncation attributes supported

Completeness attributes supported

Values other than "1" are accepted, but not regarded.

Required and default attributes

The Use attribute is REQUIRED.
For the other attributes, if an attribute type and value are not supplied by the client, the following defaults are applied:

Search term processing in Voyager system

Keywords (name, title, subject, note):

• Keyword search terms can appear anywhere in the field.
• If multiple words appear in the same search term, the search term will be processed as a phrase.
• If the words appear in separate operands (ANDed together) they can appear in different fields in the same record.
• Personal name keywords: A keyword search term can be the first, middle, or last name. If more than one name appears in the search term of a keyword search, the order is significant. Last name should precede first name.
• Keyword indexing does not include phrases that cross subfield boundaries. If the search term contains a phrase that may cross subfield boundaries (e.g., subject heading, LC call number, etc.), use a left-anchored (right-truncated) search. (In other words, Position attribute = "first-in-field"; Truncation attribute = "right truncation".)

Phrase searches (name, title, subject, note):

• Phrase search terms can appear anywhere in the field.
• Phrase searches that include the "First-in-field" Position attribute should begin with the first significant word in the field.
• Personal name phrase searches: The order in which the names appear in the search term is significant. In other words, the surname should appear first (with or without comma) in order to match against entry fields in Voyager indexes.

Number searches (ISBN, ISSN, LCCN, etc.):

• Use a hyphen in all ISSN search terms (e.g., 1234-5678).
• Do not include hyphens in ISBN or LCCN search terms.
• LCCN search terms should be in normalized format (i.e., include any prefix, spaces, or zero file). For example, LCCN 91-13 should be "91000013" in the search term.

Qualifying Searches:

• Searches are not supported against previous result sets.

Wild Card/Truncation:

• The questions mark ("?") is supported as a truncation character.

Sort Order:

• Keyword searches:
  • Records in keyword search result sets are in order by the Voyager control number (MARC field 001).

• Left-anchored searches:
  • Records in left-anchored search result sets are sorted by the field being searched (e.g., title, subject, call number, etc.).

Search term length limitations:

• Search terms (after mapping from intersite syntax to the internal Voyager search system) must not exceed 255 characters.

Limitations of Voyager server

• There is a limit of 10,000 records that can be retrieved in a result set.
• The server does not support the complete MARC 21 character set. Diacritics and many special characters are not encoded correctly. Diacritics and special characters are currently being converted to an proprietary Endeavor Latin-1 representation.
• It is not possible to search the authority files.
• When the Voyager server result set is a medium or a small set (based on the size of result set in relation to large-set, small-set, and medium-set number parameters in the Search Request) the following three encoding problems can result:
  1. When records are expected in the Search Response (e.g., a medium set or a small set), the presentStatus is a "0" (success) instead of a "5" (failure).
  2. When a non-surrogate diagnostic record is returned instead of result set records in the Search Response, the value of numberOfRecordsReturned is a "0" instead of a "1".
  3. The non-surrogate diagnostic record never contains an addInfo (which is mandatory in the standard). If these problems are making interworking with the Voyager server difficult, it is suggested that the client small-set and medium-set number be set to zero and the large-set to one (making every set a large set) until these server problems have been corrected by Endeavor.