Agora news bulletin: March 1999

Agora news bulletin: March 1999

Welcome to the March bulletin - you may have noticed the gap in February, due to illness. This issue therefore reports on events since the last bulletin at the end of January.

Library associates (contribution from David Palmer, UEA)

After the intense effort in December and January producing the specification, the library associates enjoyed a bit of 'down time' in February and March. However this is not to say the group has been inactive by any means. Work commenced on identifying possible resources to populate Release 1 of Agora and David Palmer was busy revising the specification in preparation for the board meeting and preparing a work schedule for the next two stages. This will be presented and discussed at a meeting of the associates in April which will 'set the scene' for the next stages of the project for the associates.

Board meeting

An Agora board meeting was held on 19 March in London:

The board accepted the Agora Release 1 specification. After removal of a couple of sensitive sections, a public version has been made available on the Agora web site at:

<http://hosted.ukoln.ac.uk/agora/documents/documents.html>

The revised project plan was also approved and will be available from the above URL when editing is completed.
Likewise, the Agora evaluation report (covering January-December 1998) produced by CERLIM for the board meeting is being made public.
The option of growing the library associate group was discussed, and it was decided to proceed with identifying possible candidates.

David Palmer and Rosemary Russell held a parallel meeting to discuss a suitable approach to selecting resources for inclusion in Agora Release 1. A 'core list' of Z39.50 services based on sources identified by the library associates will be drawn up, with the opportunity for library associates to also suggest other resources which are particularly relevant for individual sites.

BSCW

Following the small BSCW survey carried out by CERLIM in February, and discussion at the board meeting, we have been considering ways of increasing use and familiarity with the product. We are therefore having a 'familiarisation' session for library associates attached to the meeting in London on 16 April. We are also planning a document to cover basic BSCW procedures, and how features should be used. Any suggestions about coverage, or any other comments welcome. Please also let me know about any specific problems/queries you have about using BSCW.

ZILS profile

UKOLN has been participating in discussions about the development of an international Z39.50 profile to support searching of distributed Z39.50 catalogues. Since most library management systems have an international market, the essential aims are to avoid proliferation of different profiles in different countries (thereby improving the chances of vendor support) and to improve interoperability between services. A teleconference in March decided to base the proposed international profile on the Z Texas Profile developed by Bill Moen:

<URL:http://www.unt.edu/wmoen/TZIGProfile99Mar23.htm>

Another teleconference is being held in April in conjunction with the review process. The aim is to submit ZILS to ISO during 1999.

Agora in the community

eLib phase 3 projects have a joint stand at Internet Librarian & Libtech 99 (29-31 March) in London, which is being staffed by representatives from each of the projects. David Palmer is representing Agora. Flyers will be available as well as copies of the specification; UKOLN has also produced an Agora poster for displaying at the stand - a copy is available for information at:

<URL:http://hosted.ukoln.ac.uk/agora/dissemination/dissem.html>

There is also a hybrid library conference session at Internet Librarian & Libtech 99 on 30 March, where David is presenting the Agora specification; this is very timely, since the spec has just been made public.
A text presenting an overview of Agora was submitted to Relay (The Library Association University, College and Research Group journal) at the beginning of February.
Note that all the Agora bulletins to date are now available at:

<URL:http://hosted.ukoln.ac.uk/agora/dissemination/bulletins/bulletins.html>

Rosemary

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Rosemary Russell, MODELS Project Manager & AGORA Communications

Coordinator, UKOLN (UK Office for Library & Information

Networking), ULCC, 20 Guilford St, London WC1N 1DZ

Email: r.russell@ukoln.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0)171 692 1302; Fax: +44 (0)171 692 1234

<URL: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/~lisrr/>

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UKOLN, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK

Tel: +44 (0)1225 826580; Fax: +44 (0)1225 826838

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