Applications that access Z39.50 servers

[Douglas Bates <bates@stat.wisc.edu>]

Z39.50 is a client-server protocol that is widely used by libraries
and other places that keep track of books.  The home page is
http://www.loc.gov/z3950/agency/ at the U.S. Library of Congress.

I want to do searches of the Library of Congress voyager database from
a program.  I was using a short perl script with the Zetaperl module
                http://zeta.tlcpi.finsiel.it/z3950/zetaperl/
then I upgraded perl on my Debian 2.3 system and the Zetaperl module
will no longer load.

Since then I have tried looking at yaz (http://www.indexdata.dk/yaz/)
and the Net::Z3950 perl module from CPAN.  I still don't have that
running satisfactorily.

I would prefer not to duplicate effort of others in the Debian
community.  Has anyone developed Z39.50 clients on Debian systems?
Are there any recommendations of preferred software to use?  Ideally I
would use python instead of perl but I can get by in perl if
necessary.

Also, if anyone knows about the USMARC record format and can recommend
software to crack it, I would appreciate hearing from you.  Librarians
seem to have peculiar ways of organizing information.
-- 
Douglas Bates                            bates@stat.wisc.edu
Statistics Department                    608/262-2598
University of Wisconsin - Madison        http://www.stat.wisc.edu/~bates/