[ih] Copy of first web page discovered

[John Day]

>
>Z39.50, at least as of a couple of years ago, is still the bases for 
>federated search among library catalogs worldwide - "limited" is not 
>the word I'd use.

Yes, I am afraid Z39 is still out there in force and heavily used in 
the library world primarily because LC uses it.  I have to take some 
of the blame for setting that off.  It was quite an interesting 
sociological study.  In the mid-70s, there was a National Commission 
on Libraries and Information Science.  One of the recommendations was 
that enacted was to develop a library protocol.  I was asked (I don't 
remember how it came to us) if I would advise them.  This happen in 
1975/6, just as I was moving to Houston for my wife to post-doc and 
was working at Univ of Illinois and commuting over the 'Net. 
(Telenet from Houston to Multics;  ARPANET back to Illinois).

There were four main players OCLC (at Ohio State), BALLOTS 
(Stanford), NYPL (New York Public), LC (Library of Congress and 
Henriette) ;-) and maybe 3 or 4 others. (Memory is vague). They were 
all very suspicious of each other and afraid that they would lose out 
to another one if they agreed to too much.  So the first protocol 
didn't have much in it, but by the time they got to it they were 
already talking about other areas that they could agree on.  They 
dynamics among the participants and how it changed as time went on 
was most interesting.  (It was about here that I began to see the 
"Stockholm effect" that often plays out in standards making and why 
no matter what you do it will take more time than you think it 
should. )

I got them started and they got through the first iteration,  I sent 
them off on their own and I went back to more other stuff.  That 
effort eventually became Z39.

Take care,
John