This document provides detailed technical information for Z39.50 and SRU client developers and implementors that is necessary in order to access and interwork with the LC Voyager Server (implemented August 31, 1999). This document assumes a general familiarity with Z39.50 and SRU.
The LC 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 utilized.
LC has implemented Index Data's YAZ Proxy, which is functioning as an SRW/SRU/Z39.50 gateway to the Voyager Z39.50 server for the LC Online Catalog. The SRW and SRU Web services conform to version 1.1 of the standard.
Any questions should be sent to Larry Dixson (ldix@LOC.GOV).
The LC server supports the following services:
Initialization Search Present
The LC SRW/SRU server supports the following services:
Explain searchRetrieve
Library of Congress Online Catalog
Domain name: z3950.loc.gov (140.147.249.38)
Port: 7090
Database name: Voyager
Availability: 24 hours/day; 7 days/week
Z39.50 Explain record: LC Online Catalog Z39.50 Explain Record
SRW/SRU Base URL: http://z3950.loc.gov:7090/voyager?
SRW/SRU Explain record: LC Online Catalog SRW/SRU Explain Record
National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.
International Union Catalog
Domain name: z3950.loc.gov (140.147.249.38)
Port: 7490
Database name: Voyager
Availability: 24 hours/day; 7 days/week
Z39.50 Explain record: NLS/BPH Explain Record
Handbook of Latin American Studies
Domain name: z3950.loc.gov (140.147.249.38)
Port: 7990
Database name: Voyager
Availability: 24 hours/day; 7 days/week
Z39.50 Explain record: HLAS Explain Record
Note: IP address of production server was "140.147.237.50" prior to May 16, 2000.
Protocol Version
Z39.50-1995 (Version 3)
Options Supported
Search
Present
Preferred Message Size
LC will negotiate Client down to 32,768 bytes if requested size exceeds
32,768 bytes, and accept Client proposal if it is less than 32,768 bytes.
Maximum Record Size
Server will accept Client proposal
ID Authentication
User-id and password are not required by LC Server
Result Set Name
Only "default" is supported (case insensitive)
Database Names (case insensitive)
Use "Voyager"
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 are not supported
Operators Supported:
AND
OR
AND-NOT
Result Set Maximum is 10,000 records
Session Inactivity Timer
3 minutes
Record Syntaxes Supported
MARC 21 (OID = 1.2.840.10003.5.10)
OPAC (OID = 1.2.840.10003.5.102)
XML (OID = 1.2.840.10003.5.109.10) (LC Online Catalog only)
Element Set Names Supported
"F" -- Full (MARC and OPAC records)
"dc" -- Dublin Core (XML records)
"mods" -- MODS (XML records)
"marcxml" -- MARCXML (XML records), default schema for XML
"opacxml" -- MARCXML with holdings attached
Present Response Maximum is 50 records
"dc" -- Dublin Core "mods" -- MODS "marcxml" -- MARCXML - the default schema "opacxml" -- MARCXML (wth holdings attached)
Dublin Core Index
dc.author
dc.creator
dc.date
dc.description
dc.publisher
dc.resourceType
dc.resourceIdentifier
dc.source
dc.subject
dc.title
Bath Index
bath.any
bath.author
bath.conferenceName
bath.corporateAuthor
bath.corporateName
bath.genreForm
bath.geographicName
bath.isbn
bath.issn
bath.keyTitle
bath.lcCallNumber
bath.lccn
bath.name
bath.notes
bath.personalAuthor
bath.personalName
bath.publisher
bath.publisherNumber
bath.seriesTitle
bath.standardIdentifier
bath.subject
bath.title
bath.topicalSubject
bath.uniformTitle
Value Description
----- -------------------------
1 Personal name
2 Corporate name
3 Conference name
4 Title
5 Title series
6 Uniform title
7 ISBN
8 ISSN
9 LCCN
13 Dewey classification
16 LC call number
17 NLM call number
20 Other call number
21 Subject heading
25 MeSH subject heading
27 LC subject heading
31 Date of publication
33 Title -- key
41 Title -- variant
42 Title -- former
43 Title -- abbreviated
48 Number -- national bibliography
50 Number -- government pub.
51 Number -- music publisher
54 Code -- language
55 Code -- geographic area
56 Code -- institution
57 Name and title
58 Name geographic
59 Place of publication
60 CODEN
62 Abstract
63 Note
1002 Name
1003 Author
1004 Author (personal name)
1005 Author (corporate name)
1007 Standard identifier
1008 LC children's subject
1009 Subject (personal name)
1016 Any (keyword)
1018 Name of publisher
1019 Location
1027 Standard technical report number
1031 Material type (245$h)
1032 Electronic location and access
1056 Dissertation note
1074 Subject (name)
1078 Subject (title)
1079 Subject (topical)
1107 Additional format note
1185 Credits/performers
1209 Electronic access
Value Description
----- ---------------
3 Equal
Values other than "3" are accepted, but not regarded.
Value Description
----- ---------------
1 First in field
3 Any
Value Description
----- ---------------
1 Phrase
Values other than "1" are accepted, but not regarded.
Value Description
----- ---------------
1 Right truncation
100 Do not truncate
Value Description
----- --------------------
1 Incomplete subfield
Values other than "1" are accepted, but not regarded.
Requirements and Defaults: 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 at LC:
RELATION: -- Equal (value=3)
POSITION: -- Any (value=3)
STRUCTURE: -- Phrase (value=1)
TRUNCATION: -- Do not truncate (value=100)
COMPLETENESS: -- Incomplete subfield (value=1)
Keyword searches (i.e., Position attribute = "any-position-in-field"):
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 (ordered, adjacent word list).
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 (i.e., multiple-word search terms):
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.
Boolean operators cannot be used with phrase searches that
include the "First-in-field" Position attribute.
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 LC 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 fill). 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, LC call number, etc.).
There is a limit of 10,000 records that can be retrieved in a result
set.
Since March 4, 2002, the LC server supports the complete MARC 21
character set. Diacritics and special characters present in
records returned by the Z39.50 server are now encoded correctly.
Records in JACKPHY languages that were loaded at LC prior to
mid-February, 2002, contain incorrectly coded escape sequences
that do not conform to the MARC 21 standard. This means that
there are approximately 400,000 records with corrupted 880 fields
that need to be corrected. It is anticipated that these records
will be corrected by early 2006.
It is not possible to search the LC authority files via Z39.50.
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.
Library of Congress
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