- <chapter id="introduction">
- <title>Introduction</title>
- <para>
- Pazpar2 is a stand-alone metasearch client with a webservice API, designed
- to be used either from a browser-based client (JavaScript, Flash, Java,
- etc.), from from server-side code, or any combination of the two.
- Pazpar2 is a highly optimized client designed to
- search many resources in parallel. It implements record merging,
- relevance-ranking and sorting by arbitrary data content, and facet
- analysis for browsing purposes. It is designed to be data model
- independent, and is capable of working with MARC, DublinCore, or any
- other XML-structured response format -- XSLT is used to normalize and extract
- data from retrieval records for display and analysis. It can be used
- against any server which supports the Z39.50 protocol. Proprietary
- backend modules can be used to support a large number of other protocols
- (please contact Index Data for further information about this).
- </para>
- <para>
- Additional functionality such as
- user management, attractive displays are expected to be implemented by
- applications that use pazpar2. Pazpar2 is user interface independent.
- Its functionality is exposed through a simple REST-style webservice API,
- designed to be simple to use from an Ajax-enbled browser, Flash
- animation, Java applet, etc., or from a higher-level server-side language
- like PHP or Java. Because session information can be shared between
- browser-based logic and your server-side scripting, there is tremendous
- flexibility in how you implement your business logic on top of pazpar2.
- </para>
- <para>
- Once you launch a search in pazpar2, the operation continues behind the
- scenes. Pazpar2 connects to servers, carries out searches, and
- retrieves, deduplicates, and stores results internally. Your application
- code may periodically inquire about the status of an ongoing operation,
- and ask to see records or other result set facets. Result become
- available immediately, and it is easy to build end-user interfaces which
- feel extremely responsive, even when searching more than 100 servers
- concurrently.
- </para>
- <para>
- Pazpar2 is designed to be highly configurable. Incoming records are
- normalized to XML/UTF-8, and then further normalized using XSLT to a
- simple internal representation that is suitable for analysis. By
- providing XSLT stylesheets for different kinds of result records, you
- can tune pazpar2 to work against different kinds of information
- retrieval servers. Finally, metadata is extracted, in a configurable
- way, from this internal record, to support display, merging, ranking,
- result set facets, and sorting. Pazpar2 is not bound to a specific model
- of metadata, such as DublinCore or MARC -- by providing the right
- configuration, it can work with a number of different kinds of data in
- support of many different applications.
- </para>
- <para>
- Pazpar2 is designed to be efficient and scalable. You can set it up to
- search several hundred targets in parallel, or you can use it to support
- hundreds of concurrent users. It is implemented with the same attention
- to performance and economy that we use in our indexing engines, so that
- you can focus on building your application, without worrying about the
- details of metasearch logic. You can devote all of your attention to
- usability and let pazpar2 do what it does best -- metasearch.
- </para>
- <para>
- If you wish to connect to commercial or other databases which do not
- support open standards, please contact Index Data. We have a licensing
- agreement with a third party vendor which will enable pazpar2 to access
- thousands of online databases, in addition the vast number of catalogs
- and online services that support the Z39.50 protocol.
- </para>
- <para>
- Pazpar2 is our attempt to re-think the traditional paradigms for
- implementing and deploying metasearch logic, with an uncompromising
- approach to performance, and attempting to make maximum use of the
- capabilities of modern browsers. The demo user interface that
- accompanies the distribution is but one example. If you think of new
- ways of using pazpar2, we hope you'll share them with us, and if we
- can provide assistance with regards to training, design, programming,
- integration with different backends, hosting, or support, please don't
- hesitate to contact us. If you'd like to see functionality in pazpar2
- that is not there today, please don't hesitate to contact us. It may
- already be in our development pipeline, or there might be a
- possibility for you to help out by sponsoring development time or
- code. Either way, get in touch and we will give you straight answers.
- </para>
- <para>
- Enjoy!
- </para>
- <para>
- Pazpar2 is covered by the GNU license version 2.
- See <xref linkend="license"/> for further information.
- </para>
- </chapter>
-
- <chapter id="installation">
- <title>Installation</title>
- <para>
- Pazpar2 depends on the following tools/libraries:
- <variablelist>
- <varlistentry><term><ulink url="&url.yaz;">YAZ</ulink></term>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- The popular Z39.50 toolkit for the C language. YAZ must be
- compiled with Libxml2/Libxslt support.
- </para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term><ulink url="&url.icu;">International
- Components for Unicode (ICU)</ulink></term>
- <listitem>
- <para>
+ <chapter id="introduction">
+ <title>Introduction</title>
+ <para>
+ Pazpar2 is a stand-alone metasearch client with a webservice API, designed
+ to be used either from a browser-based client (JavaScript, Flash, Java,
+ etc.), from from server-side code, or any combination of the two.
+ Pazpar2 is a highly optimized client designed to
+ search many resources in parallel. It implements record merging,
+ relevance-ranking and sorting by arbitrary data content, and facet
+ analysis for browsing purposes. It is designed to be data model
+ independent, and is capable of working with MARC, DublinCore, or any
+ other XML-structured response format -- XSLT is used to normalize and extract
+ data from retrieval records for display and analysis. It can be used
+ against any server which supports the Z39.50 protocol. Proprietary
+ backend modules can be used to support a large number of other protocols
+ (please contact Index Data for further information about this).
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Additional functionality such as
+ user management, attractive displays are expected to be implemented by
+ applications that use pazpar2. Pazpar2 is user interface independent.
+ Its functionality is exposed through a simple REST-style webservice API,
+ designed to be simple to use from an Ajax-enbled browser, Flash
+ animation, Java applet, etc., or from a higher-level server-side language
+ like PHP or Java. Because session information can be shared between
+ browser-based logic and your server-side scripting, there is tremendous
+ flexibility in how you implement your business logic on top of pazpar2.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Once you launch a search in pazpar2, the operation continues behind the
+ scenes. Pazpar2 connects to servers, carries out searches, and
+ retrieves, deduplicates, and stores results internally. Your application
+ code may periodically inquire about the status of an ongoing operation,
+ and ask to see records or other result set facets. Result become
+ available immediately, and it is easy to build end-user interfaces which
+ feel extremely responsive, even when searching more than 100 servers
+ concurrently.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Pazpar2 is designed to be highly configurable. Incoming records are
+ normalized to XML/UTF-8, and then further normalized using XSLT to a
+ simple internal representation that is suitable for analysis. By
+ providing XSLT stylesheets for different kinds of result records, you
+ can tune pazpar2 to work against different kinds of information
+ retrieval servers. Finally, metadata is extracted, in a configurable
+ way, from this internal record, to support display, merging, ranking,
+ result set facets, and sorting. Pazpar2 is not bound to a specific model
+ of metadata, such as DublinCore or MARC -- by providing the right
+ configuration, it can work with a number of different kinds of data in
+ support of many different applications.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Pazpar2 is designed to be efficient and scalable. You can set it up to
+ search several hundred targets in parallel, or you can use it to support
+ hundreds of concurrent users. It is implemented with the same attention
+ to performance and economy that we use in our indexing engines, so that
+ you can focus on building your application, without worrying about the
+ details of metasearch logic. You can devote all of your attention to
+ usability and let pazpar2 do what it does best -- metasearch.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If you wish to connect to commercial or other databases which do not
+ support open standards, please contact Index Data. We have a licensing
+ agreement with a third party vendor which will enable pazpar2 to access
+ thousands of online databases, in addition the vast number of catalogs
+ and online services that support the Z39.50 protocol.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Pazpar2 is our attempt to re-think the traditional paradigms for
+ implementing and deploying metasearch logic, with an uncompromising
+ approach to performance, and attempting to make maximum use of the
+ capabilities of modern browsers. The demo user interface that
+ accompanies the distribution is but one example. If you think of new
+ ways of using pazpar2, we hope you'll share them with us, and if we
+ can provide assistance with regards to training, design, programming,
+ integration with different backends, hosting, or support, please don't
+ hesitate to contact us. If you'd like to see functionality in pazpar2
+ that is not there today, please don't hesitate to contact us. It may
+ already be in our development pipeline, or there might be a
+ possibility for you to help out by sponsoring development time or
+ code. Either way, get in touch and we will give you straight answers.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Enjoy!
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Pazpar2 is covered by the GNU license version 2.
+ See <xref linkend="license"/> for further information.
+ </para>
+ </chapter>
+
+ <chapter id="installation">
+ <title>Installation</title>
+ <para>
+ Pazpar2 depends on the following tools/libraries:
+ <variablelist>
+ <varlistentry><term><ulink url="&url.yaz;">YAZ</ulink></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The popular Z39.50 toolkit for the C language. YAZ must be
+ compiled with Libxml2/Libxslt support.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry><term><ulink url="&url.icu;">International
+ Components for Unicode (ICU)</ulink></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>