The WilsonWeb Z39.50 Gateway is compliant with Version 2 and Version 3 of the Z39.50 specification. It supports the following features:

Searching Universal Fields

Allows users to narrow searches to specific fields rather than general keyword searches.

Multi-database Searching

Clients can request searching multiple databases by including more than one database in the Search Request's Database Name sequence. There is no restriction on the number of databases that can be listed.

Record Syntaxes Supported

MARC (Machine Readable Catalog)
SUTRS (Simple Unstructured Text Record Syntax)
GRS.1 (Generic Record Syntax)
XML (extensible Markup language)

IP Address Checking

Customers who have informed HW Wilson of the relevant IP address ranges that are valid for their account can have their Z39.50 client be authenticated by the IP address that the client is running on.

Record Sorting

Allows users to sort search results according to a particular field (e.g., Author, Title, Publication Year, etc.). Result sets of 20,000 records or fewer can be sorted. The default result set order is descending by relevance rank if no sort is requested. See below for a list of the available sort fields.

User Authentication

The server requires a username and password. Z39.50 clients must support User Authentication and send either the open user/password or id/password. IP Authentication should be in the initialization request. Alternatively, clients can be IP authenticated as described above.

Attribute Sets

The client must support BIB-1 Attributes. The Z39.50 Gateway maps BIB-1-USE attribute numbers to WilsonWeb database index names. Click on a database ID below to see the USE attribute mappings for each searchable index in that database. Where appropriate, standard BIB-1 USE attributes from ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/z3950/defs/bib1.txt have been mapped to WilsonWeb index names. Other index names have been assigned USE attribute numbers from the private area (5000-10000).

Support for Truncation Attributes

 

Profile Information

The basic profile needed is one that supports the BIB-1 attribute set. Wilson supports init, search, present and sort services with record sets provided in SUTRS, GRS, US MARC or XML. To see the list of displayable fields in each of the record syntaxes for that database, see:

Z39.50 Database Server Configuration

Init Services

The primary mode of authentication used by HW Wilson subscribers is username/password authentication.

Connection Information

The server host is z3950.hwwilsonweb.com, the port number is 210

Database Identifiers

For the Database Identifiers, Use Attribute Mappings, and Display Mappings, see:

Z39.50 Database Server Configuration

 

Reference Documents

BIB-1 Attribute Set

http://www.loc.gov/z3950/agency/defns/bib1.html

Attribute Set BIB-1 (z39.50-1995): Semantics

ftp://fttp.loc.gov/pub/z3950/defs/bib1.txt

z39.50 Maintenance Agency

http://www.loc.gov/z3950/agency/agency.html