This lecture script examines the nature and role of standards for the emerging 21st century library. Given the dynamic character of the networked environment, when are standards appropriate and how can they be developed in a manner consistent with the volatility of information technologies and changing library services? What are the roles and responsibilities of standards developing organizations, technology vendors, content creators, and librarians for standards? Do local practices of libraries threaten standards-based resource sharing and resource access technologies? Can local needs be balanced with broader library community responsibilities, and how do standards affect this balance? The speaker's assumption is that adherence to standards has never been more critical, yet his implementation experience with Z39.50 and MARC suggests that the commitment to national and international standards by librarians, technology vendors, and content creators are often an example of good intentions rather than actual practice. This standards disconnect threatens the emerging 21st century library's ability to deliver fundamental services in appropriate ways to their users.

This abstract describes a poster about the Apiary Project. The Apiary Project, a collaboration of the Texas Center for Digital Knowledge at the University of North Texas and the Botanical Research Institute of Texas, is building a framework and web-based workflow for the extraction and parsing of herbarium specimen data. The workflow will support the transformation of written or printed specimen data into a high-quality machine-processable XML format. This poster describes an event model that informed the development of the Apiary XML Application Schema

This document details a work plan to guide the planning and execution of a new phase of the Z39.50 Interoperability Testbed Project.

This document discusses phase 1 of interoperability testing as part of the Z-Interop project.

This document is part of a Government Information Quarterly Special Issue. The author serves as the editor of this issue focusing on the use of metadata as a strategy to improve access to and management of electronic government information. Contributions by writers address federal and state metadata activities and issues.

This document discusses decomposing MARC 21 records for analysis. To prepare the test dataset of the 1% sample of MARC 21 records from the WorldCat database for use in the Z39.50 Interoperability Testbed, the authors need to be able to efficiently analyze the records to determine relevant records to be returned for a set of test searches. The first step in that analysis is to determine the occurrence of test search terms in specific records. This document describes the general approach for this analysis and identifies specifications for the analysis.

This document provides guidelines for indexing MARC 21 records to support a set of searches using Z39.50. The Z39.50 Interoperability Testbed Project (Z-Interop) uses these guidelines to index the 400,000 MARC 21 records that comprise the Z-Interop reference implementation of the Z39.50 server and online catalog.

This document discusses a Z39.50 Interoperability Testing framework. In a first phase of the Z39.50 Interoperability Testbed, a large dataset of MARC records was used. In this work, the authors are exploring how a set of special, diagnostic MARC records can be developed and used to identify interoperability problems between a Z39.50 client and a Z39.50 server providing access to a database of bibliographic records supporting the search and retrieval functions of an online library catalog. The authors refer to these special, diagnostic records as radioactive MARC records. It discusses the various components and identifies the tasks related to developing and implementing the components.

This document describes how the authors can extend a relational database of MARC documentation to store the appropriate information that will support the automatic generation of the special, diagnostic MARC records the authors will call radioactive MARC (RadMARC) records. The information contained in the database will also support the generation of the Z queries used in the interoperability testing.

In this document, the authors present some aspects of data normalization of the decomposed records to improve the results of analysis. The data normalization processes use pattern-matching techniques to eliminate and/or generalize anomalous characters and terms. Since the unit of analysis in preparing the test dataset of 400,000 MARC 21 records is a "word," there was a need for data normalization to provide reliability in the subsequent analysis.

This document provides an overview and the details of policies and procedures of the Z39.50 Interoperability Testbed Project (referred to as Z-Interop). Specifically, the document lays out the responsibilities and obligations of the Z-Interop testbed and the organizations that participate in interoperability testing. For purposes of this document, Z-Interop staff refers to all members of the Z39.50 Interoperability Testbed Project. Z-Interop participant refers to an individual or organization who tests its Z39.50 client or Z39.50 server through the Z39.50 Interoperability Testbed.

This document describes the procedures that participants in the Z39.50 Interoperability Testbed (Z-Interop Participant) are to use when testing Z39.50 client (Z-client) applications. The testing of a Z-Interop reference implementation Z39.50 server. Specifically, the attribute combination and other query components (e.g., Boolean operators) are reviewed, and a report of the results will be prepared for each Z-Interop participant.

This document provides the preliminary specifications for the different RadMARC records to be created for use in the Z-Interop2 interoperability testbed. Experience with these records may result in revisions to the specifications.

This document describes the data analysis procedures developed to create the Aggregate and Candidate Record Groups using SQL statements. This is the preliminary version of these procedures tested and validated on a sample of decomposed MARC records. (For a description of how the MARC records were decomposed see the Z-Interop document, Decomposing MARC 21 Records for Analysis. A subsequent version may be necessary as the authors move to the procedures for the entire file of decomposed records.