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ZNavigator

User Interface

ZNavigator opens to a plain screen with the logo in a gray watermarked background  the good news is that you can change it to one of your own choice quite simply!  Along the top are a big set of Microsoft style icons in a toolbar which can be hidden but not moved. Tool tips appear as you “mouse over” the icons and the general feel is one of a professional piece of software

Help is adequate with useful screen shots of set-up screens etc. and detailed explanations of some of the intricacies of Z39.50.

Starting up

To start with, the only option is to start a new session you cannot save a session then re-use it directly as with BookWhere. The user can select a group of user defined hosts from a drop down list  and within that group an individual host or the entire group. Alternatively, you can connect directly to a new host not previously set up by entering IP addresses and so on. Once you have a session open i.e. a host chosen, you can save queries and records in folders for later re-use - independent of sessions. This is very useful  especially as complex queries are tricky to get right and it almost gets round the drawback of not being able to save a session directly.

As soon as you select a host, ZNavigator opens a search window for that host and tries to connect to the server. This is fine unless, like me, you prepare enquiries off-line ready to dial-up. If you are off-line then you get an error which then has to be cancelled.  If you have selected 10 hosts then you have to cancel 10 error messages!

Searching

Once over this hurdle, you may then enter the search query into one or all sessions via the “Run on all sessions” option.  There is also an icon to copy a search query to the clipboard and thence to any other session Window. 

Once the searches have been set up, they are run against each database simultaneously and brief results appear in the session Window of each host. The full record must then be requested from the host and is displayed in a separate full record Window which may be managed separately from the session Window where the brief results appear. You can only get one full record at a time from any session although you can bookmark records and they can be saved in a folder for later use. You can use the folders for intermediate storage saving records and queries away and then bringing them back again before deciding whether to export the or not.

Entering Search terms

ZNavigator gives the option of simple or complex searches. The simple search really is simple allowing you to enter terms with no operators  it picks up a pre-set default normally AND.  This means that it works much like a standard OPAC with the user not needing to understand anything about Boolean operators or worrying about which fields to search.  During the search, a status box tells you the progress of the search.

The complex search option is similar to BookWhere in principle you create a “query tree” of terms linked via Boolean terms in a variant of Reverse Polish Notation. See the separate discussion of query formulation.  Suffice to say that it is powerful but not user friendly and difficult to read the query when assembled on a line in the query box since all of the attribute codes are explicitly displayed.  Hiding these would reduce the length of the query line and make it lots easier to read although never simple.

All queries are logged in a history file so they can be pulled back from here and re-submitted. The history file is wiped when you close the program you need to save it in a folder for permanent retention.

ZNavigator was the only product supporting the scan feature and  once you find a server supporting the feature try OCLC’s test server at 132.174.22.96: the database is MEDLINE.  When ZNavigator initialises a Z-server which supports the Scan feature, the scan icon illuminates. Pressing it opens a dialogue box where you can enter a term. The scan service returns a list of matching terms from the database with a hit count against each term.  Double clicking the term sends it to the server.  It works  but the effort of using RPN and attribute codes ahead of the term is clumsy to say the least.

Retrieving records

The first presentation of Brief records is in their order of retrieval from the server in a table format. You can sort them as required from then on.  One disappointing feature is that I could not find a way to specify a date field in the Brief record set it is derived from the 300 tag so includes Place, Publisher and Date which makes trying to sort by date fairly pointless. BookWhere by comparison displays the 008 tag date field and you can sort records in ascending or descending date order quite happily.

Hosts are searched simultaneously and so no time is lost if you are searching a lot of libraries. When searching multiple databases, the results from each database is set in a separate Window so you cannot easily compare results.  You can however get several full records set side by side from different libraries if you wish.

Double clicking on a record brings up the Full record in either MARC Tag format or labelled format.  You cannot flip between the two for the same record very easily you have to change the default and then go and get the record from the server again.

Once you have a record you have some nice “folder” options which enable you to create any number of folders and place records or queries in the folder and then use them as you want either copying as text or reloading into a search session. I had some difficulty loading a set of full records back in from a search session. I think possibly that you can only export full records not re-load for later off-line inspection. In any case you cannot save a MARC record as an exchange record and load it into another system.

Onward navigation from the record retrieved is limited to a fairly crude feature that allows the user to copy a field into the current search query and then re-query. 

Exporting records

Perhaps the most disappointing feature of ZNavigator is the fact that you cannot export a MARC format record to a file.  You can drop text versions of the records into folders but this is of far less value than the full MARC record. The actual format is of translated MARC tags with subfield codes but no indicators neither fish nor fowl. The reason for this omission has to do with the original aims of the CaseLibrary project where the aim was resource management of catalogues and CD-ROMs through the Z-client and associated server it was not designed as a cataloguing tool. Apparently MARC export could be added easily and when a 32bit version is released commercially this may be part of the product.

Version 3 compliance

ZNavigator is version 3 compliant and has some of the version 3 facilities enabled including scan which enables the Z-client to browse through an index of Subject or Names something that is common enough on standard OPACs but not on yet available on many Z-servers.

There is a useful “session status” command which will show you, when on-line to a server, which version  of Z39.50 and which features are supported. Access control is implemented so passwords can be saved against individual servers.

Searching experience

Although a little less intuitive than the BookWhere product, ZNavigator performed well at the basic search level and the simple query facility is good for doing quick searches. I would love an algebraic query interface though or a re-think on the existing complex search interface.

Settings

The setting of preferences on the system could do with some improvement. Having to edit config. files in Notepad is a bit dangerous.

Hosts

Hosts can be grouped usefully and then all hosts in a group opened simultaneously but in separate Windows.

Display and sorting rules

Changing the record display options for ZNavigator can be done by editing configuration files  either outside of the application using a text editor or via the Customise Record List option for the Brief records.  Changing these files is a fairly rare event but it makes the application feel less “packaged” in a sense - however the help files cover this configuration quite well.  The key restriction in the configuration is that it can only be done at the MARC tag level  not by subfield.  This results in the 300 publication tag being lumped together in the brief display. Neither can the 008 information fields be analysed to extract useful data. Thus there is no publication date sort capability.Sorting is controlled simply from the Record List display  click on a column header and press the ascending or descending button as desired.

Conclusions

ZNavigator is a useful Z39.50 tool and is well engineered to version 3 compatibility.  The main drawbacks are the lack of MARC output, date sorting and some of the usability features that mark out BookWhere.  It can be a useful tool for anyone who only wants to search other libraries on a regular basis but cataloguers should look at BookWhere and SLS PC Browser until ZNavigator gets MARC export

Features Update: December ‘97

Just after this review of the ZNavigator product was published, and partly in response, Enware have released an upgrade version 1.OH beta which improves certain functions criticised.  BTR has not had time to review these added features.  From the release notes these are the major enhancements:

• MARC field 008 (Coded Date) is now processed in both Full and Brief presentations, allowing for ascending or descending sort in brief lists. The rest of Control Fields are now processed only if 'Translate Tags' is unchecked.
• A new command (under the 'Query' menu) has been added, named 'Export bookmarked recs (MARC)'. On selection, and after defining an export file, bookmarked full records are solicited from the server and stored in MARC interchange format, ready to be fed to any MARC-enabled catalog server.
• If 'Translate Tags' is unchecked, indicators are now shown after tags. Subfield identificators are now shown surrounded by '{}'.
• There have also been some bug fixes and improvements to the DDE support.

This will probably be the last preview release of ZNavigator, as long as the Pro Version (32 bits) is scheduled for release during the first quarter of 1998. The new release can be downloaded from:
www.sbu.ac.uk/litc/caselib or www.enware.es/znavig.htm>