Agent-based adaptive selection and interaction to Z39.50 servers

Digital libraries and OPACs offer an enormous collection of information resources which can be accessed through the Internet by quite different users thanks to the existence of standard protocols for information retrieval such as Z39.50. However, some users may have difficulty in getting the items they are looking for in such a huge volume of heterogeneous resources since they have to know where and how they have to search. Thus, one of the main reasons for disregarding the Z39.50 service has traditionally been the absence of appropriate interfaces and the cost of making alternative searches. WAY-Z39.50 tries to help spread the use of these servers by providing easy Web access to them, as well as facilitating access to multiple servers at once. The prototype implements the general WAY model based on an agent-based architecture that provides adaptive searching in different servers using an adaptive interface as well.