February 21, 2020

What is your Z39.50 Server Sharing?

Many NHAIS libraries have chosen to maintain their holdings in the NHAIS ILL System via a Z39.50 connection to their local systems. This offers several advantages including real-time availability information and the elimination of the need to maintain holding information in more than one place. Exactly what information is passed to the NHAIS ILL System by your local Zserver varies depending on what local system you use (Apollo, Koha, Polaris, etc.), and in some cases how it is configured.
If you want to see what information is being shared by your local Zserver (which is often more extensive than  the information your OPAC displays) here is how you can do that:

  1. Find a bibliographic record in your local system that has a lot of detail -- local item notes, internal processing notes, etc.
  2. Log into the NHAIS ILL System, limit your search to just your catalog, and search for the record you identified. 
  3. Review the display, especially the MARC Display at the bottom of the screen, to see what data your Zserver is passing to the NHAIS ILL System.
If there are things displaying there that you don't want to display, you will need to work with your local system vendor to supress those elements from what your Z39.50 server sends. This cannot be controlled from the ShareIt side which displays all the data each individual Zserver sends it.




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