Re: Z39.50 vs. LDAP...

On Sep 20, 2004, at 8:21 AM, Andrea Giuliano wrote:

> I was trying to explain the wonders of Z39.50 to a colleague of mine,
> who works as a system and network administrator here. Finally he said:
> "it sounds very much like LDAP".

There are some interesting similarities; both can be viewed as allowing 
remote searching of collections of metadata, in the same way that a 
catalog can sometimes be treated as a special kind of directory.

LDAP is somewhat less flexible than Z39.50, though with enough custom 
extensions it can be made roughly equivalent.

I believe Cliff Lynch wrote something comparing the two protocols back 
in 93?

Simon