- The American National Standards Institute coordinates, promotes and
facilitates the US voluntary consensus standards system and its conformity
- Application Protocol Data Unit, the means of communication between an
origin and a target, specified in ASN.1.
- Abstract syntax
- representation of data that is independent of the physical encoding.
- ASN.1: Abstract Syntax Notation 1 (ISO 8824)
- A high-level data description language used for defining structures.
ASN.1/BER is a platform-independent method of coding messages (PDUs) sent
between Z39.50 client and server applications.
- A descriptor applied to a search term that specifies how the term is to be
treated when used for searching a target database (eg personal name or corporate
name). Attributes are collected into sets and registered by the
Z39.50 Maintenance Agency.
BIB-1 was originally the only attribute set (designed specifically for searching
databases of bibliographic records), but there are now also others.
- BER: Basic Encoding Rules (ISO 8825)
- convert abstract syntaxes to a specific transfer syntax.
- a Z39.50 service added in version 3 which allows a client to discover
information about a server, such as available databases, supported attribute
sets and record syntaxes.
- Extended Services
- A set of services recognised by Z39.50 version 3 but which are not Z39.50
services themselves; they include saving a result set for later use, updating a
database and item order.
- The international protocol for interlibrary loan. There are two parts, a
service definition (ISO 10160), which defines the ILL services made available
to applications using the protocol, and a protocol specification (ISO 10161),
which specifies the content of protocol messages and procedural rules for
- International Standards Organisation.
- ISO 2709
- Standard format for bibliographic information interchange; it defines a
record structure but does not prescribe the content. Although designed for data
on magnetic tape, it is now also used for other media.
- ISO 23950
- This is the international standard - Z39.50 version 3 was accepted as an
ISO standard in March 1997. The previous version was named SR (Search and
Retrieve - ISO 10162/3).
- Item order
- One of the Z39.50 version 3 Extended Services, item order allows an origin
to send a target a request for an item and to check the status of that order.
The order may or may not be for an item resulting from a Z39.50 search.
- An agreement specifying the use of Z39.50 to support a particular
application, community, etc.
- Serial Item and Contribution Identifier (ANSI/NISO Z39.56 1991). A variable
length code that uniquely identifies serial items (issues) and contributions
(articles within issues). The second version (199X) ballot period ends on 30
- UNICODE: ISO 10646
- A character coding standard which supports the interchange, processing, and
display of the written texts of the major trading languages.The current version
contains 34,168 distinct coded characters derived from 24 supported scripts.
- ISO/CCITT standard for electronic mail, facilitating the interconnection of
- ISO/CCITT 'directory' standard designed to support the identification and
location of systems, organisations and people, and to supply information about
them. [CCITT has now been renamed ITU-T.]
- Z39.50 ANSI/NISO (US) standard.
- A retrieval protocol which allows client applications to query databases on
remote servers, retrieve results, and perform other retrieval related functions.
- See SICI.
- WAIS (Wide Area Information Server)
- A type of server that provides search access to text-based databases and
ranks results based on relevance to the search. Based on Z39.50-1988 (version
[UKOLN Z39.50 homepage]