Re: Z39.50 character encoding

On Thu, 28 Feb 2002, Johan Zeeman wrote:

> > Most MARC formats do NOT specify a character set.  Does DC?  I have at
> least
> > not seen it, but perhaps it is implisit?
> 
> Which makes "most" MARCs even more broken than MARC21,

May be it makes those MARCs rather flexible than broken..

> with which at least you know what the character set is.

It's true when we are dealing with stand-alone records only. Concidering
UNIMARC and some derivatives (e.g. RUSMARC) and assuming information
interchange between two parties which is the case in Z39.50 it is 
guaranteed that all the parties have knowledge about character set  
either in form of reasonable default provided by standard or in form of 
agreement provided as result of negotiations specified by protocol.

> UNIMARC certainly specifics character sets in considerable detail
> (basically, unless the record specifies something else using ISO 2022
> mechanisms, it's ASCII [ISO 646 IRV, actually]).

And also reserves place to negotiations: "Character sets should be those
established or registered by ISO but may also be the subject of agreement
by parties to an exchange."

> It may also be that ISO 2709 specifies a default character set

Z39.2 does not.

--
Rustam Usmanov, systems engineer
Open Library Systems Center, St.Petersburg State Technical University
Address:  29, Politekhnitcheskaya str., St.Petersburg, 195251, Russia
Tel/fax: +7 812 552 7654        <URL:http://www.unilib.neva.ru/olsc/>

Received on Thursday, 28 February 2002 11:16:51 UTC