Alephino Z39.50 Services

With the Z39.50 Gateway, Alephino offers additional search options plus the comfortable possibility to take over bibliographic records straight into the local Alephino database. For this, navigate a record to the Cataloging module and duplicate it into your local Alephino database. Depending on the format of the source record, upon saving the record in Alephino an implicit conversion into the Alephino format takes place. Authority records for links will automatically be created. This procedure allows to take over data from MARC21 compliant sources via "On the fly" conversion - possibly after minor manually editing the records in the Cataloging module.
If you want to publish your Alephino databases as Z39.50 service in the internet, with Alephino Rel. 5.0 the Z39.50 Server is now available. The Z39.50 protocol is - although older than the Hypertext - traditionally widely used in the libraries world. Even library search portals (like MetaLib from ExLibris is) will often use the Z39.50 protocol to address a variety of databases.
Please note that the operation of the Z39.50 Gateway requires a licence from Ex Libris (Deutschland) GmbH.



Setup of the Alephino GUI applications and the Web OPAC

From the point of view of the Alephino GUI applications and the Web OPAC, the Alephino Z39.50 Gateway acts as server. The services provided by the Gateway must be introduced as symbolic libraries in the configuration files of the Alephino applications (Search function in all modules, Cataloging module, Web OPAC). In the initial state of the Gateway configuration there is one symbolic library:
Of course, further sources may be integrated via Alephino Z39.50 Gateway.
Edit the following files in the installation directory of the Alephino clients (e.g. C:\Program files\ExLibris\AlephinoClients_41) and add parameter lines as follows:



With Alephino 5.0, configurating these tables has becomes much more comfortable. Please use the Library manager, a powerful tool which was integrated into the Cataloging module. With this interface, you may define additional databases to be used with Alephino GUI applications, you also may delete or rename databases while the tool ensures the correct format of the involved files.

1.
Start the tool from the main menu of the
Cataloging module

In case you get an error message like
An unsupported operation was attempted.

this is a hint that so-called "Redistributable ActiveX Controls" are missing. These Windows specific GUI control elements may not exist yet in the Windows system of the PC. You should add them to your Windows system directory as follows:
In subdirectory ActiveX in your Alephino GUI installation directory e.g. C:\Program files\ExLibris\AlephinoClients_41 you will find all necessary files.

Log in as Administrator, open a command window, then change into the system directory of your Windows system - this is usually C:\Windows\system32 - and proceed as follows:


2.
Add a symbolic database
with its gateway address


3.
Make the database available
in the Cataloging module


4.
Assign a name to the database and make it
available in the search tabs




If you want to offer Z39.50 databases in the Web OPAC so your patrons can search there, too, you must edit the configuration file of the Web-OPAC alipac.cfg, in subdirectory etc of the Alephino server:



Setup of the Z39.50 server

The Alephino Z39.50-server supports the following services of the Z39.50-protocol: The program uses a configuration file ./etc/zserver.cfg for its operation. The basic configuration already contains all the entries needed to address the predefine Alephino-database "M-TIT" (MARC21).


In order to adress a Z39.50-source using an appropriate Z39.50-Client (BookWhere, EndNote ...) the following parameters will always be needed:
IP-Address of the server (or DNS-name repectively)
The port number 
(Communication)
Port    = 2010
The database name 
(Libraries)
MARCUS = M-TIT
If a user authorization should happen, additionally:
User name
Password		 
(Communication)
User    = Z39
Pass    = Z39