Thread: SSL
In the pgsql-hackers list, its been stated that SSL can be used on the client/backend connection. Where is this documented if I want to try it? Or, can anyone just tell me know? -- Robert B. Easter reaster@comptechnews.com
Hi everybody, I am looking for some help on how to use postgresql to organize MARC bibliographic records. I am a beginner. Are there any sites or projects that have already been started? Perhaps anyone knows where to find a series of SQL statements to create an usable database for holding bibliographic records which would be USMARC compliant? Any information will help me a lot, thank you very much. Benedict P. Barszcz
On Tue, May 09, 2000 at 10:36:51AM +0100, kb2qzv@poczta.onet.pl wrote:
> Hi everybody,
> I am looking for some help on how to use postgresql to organize
> MARC bibliographic records. I am a beginner. Are there any sites
> or projects that have already been started?
>
> Perhaps anyone knows where to find a series of SQL statements
> to create an usable database for holding bibliographic records
> which would be USMARC compliant?
This is way hard. The reason is simple: MARC allows all of the following:
1. Multiple instances of the same field.
2. Variable length of field.
3. Unpredictable numbers of completed fields.
The commercial vendors of SQL-based library automation systems do this with
BLOBs. It's a pain, though, because building the indices against the
catalogue is difficult. I think, actually, that the PICK-based spproach is
better, but PICK is going away. Anyway, you likely need to talk to someone
about BLOBs. I can't help, sorry.
--
Andrew Sullivan Computer Services
<sullivana@bpl.on.ca> Burlington Public Library
+1 905 639 3611 x158 2331 New Street
Burlington, Ontario, Canada L7R 1J4
On Tue, May 09, 2000 at 10:36:51AM +0100, kb2qzv@poczta.onet.pl wrote:
> Any information will help me a lot,
Sorry, one other thing. There is a project around this: the Open Source
Digital Library System project. See
<http://osdls.library.arizona.edu/>
A
--
Andrew Sullivan Computer Services
<sullivana@bpl.on.ca> Burlington Public Library
+1 905 639 3611 x158 2331 New Street
Burlington, Ontario, Canada L7R 1J4
On Tue, 9 May 2000, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> BLOBs. It's a pain, though, because building the indices against the
> catalogue is difficult. I think, actually, that the PICK-based spproach is
> better, but PICK is going away. Anyway, you likely need to talk to someone
> about BLOBs. I can't help, sorry.
The MARC format is really intended to be used in a full-text search
environment, such as the old online systems like Dialog or Lexix-Nexis use
(although they don't use MARC specifically). They all predate SQL and
mapping one onto the other is not an easy task. It's easy to go from a
SQl database to one of the variable-length (or 80 column card image)
text-formats, but not the other way around unless you are into doing some
text-processing programming.
Brett W. McCoy
http://www.chapelperilous.net
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
If the very old will remember, the very young will listen.
-- Chief Dan George
Andrew Sullivan <sullivana@bpl.on.ca> writes:
> This is way hard. The reason is simple: MARC allows all of the following:
> 1. Multiple instances of the same field.
> 2. Variable length of field.
> 3. Unpredictable numbers of completed fields.
I would think you could handle this by splitting an entry into multiple
records linked by a common ID value. In barest bones:
itemid int,
fieldtype int,
fieldvalue text
and you do a SELECT ... WHERE itemid = X and fieldtype = Y to retrieve
all the instances of a particular field.
Still, looking around for someone who's already done it seems like a
fine idea ;-)
regards, tom lane
On Tue, May 09, 2000 at 08:48:10AM -0400, Andrew Sullivan wrote: > On Tue, May 09, 2000 at 10:36:51AM +0100, kb2qzv@poczta.onet.pl wrote: > > > Any information will help me a lot, > > Sorry, one other thing. There is a project around this: the Open Source > Digital Library System project. See > > <http://osdls.library.arizona.edu/> This looks _very_ interesting. It's currently built on MySQL, but I grabbed the source, and the SQL part looks like it could port to pgsql pretty easily. The client interface uses javascript to control a minimal browser side java 'slice', which uses RMI to talk to a java servelet, which uses something called the 'twz' jdbc driver to talk to the database. Looks like the SQL embedded in the java there might need a little tweaking, as well, for pgsql. Sigh... so many interesting projects out there, so little time... Anyway, the doco seems to be missing the section describing the schema the system uses (hmm...) However, it looks pretty straight forward, if you can read java a little, and the design doc on the website describe at a higher level how it's all supposed to work. (If my quick scan was correct, it looks simialr to what Tom Lane suggested ;-) Ross -- Ross J. Reedstrom, Ph.D., <reedstrm@rice.edu> NSBRI Research Scientist/Programmer Computer and Information Technology Institute Rice University, 6100 S. Main St., Houston, TX 77005
On Tue, May 09, 2000 at 08:44:16AM -0400, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> The commercial vendors of SQL-based library automation systems do this with
> BLOBs.
Sorry to respond to myself, but I happen to be in the middle of looking
demos for a library automation system, and I just found out that _not_
everyone uses BLOBs for this. SIRSI Corp's Unicorn system does not. It's
built on top of Informix or Oracle (you get a real SQL database iff you pick
the Oracle option) and it does not store the MARC records as BLOBs. What it
does use I don't know, although the sales reps told me they'd be happy to
get me in touch with their database guru. (Anything for a sale, I guess.)
I'm guessing that the other suggestions here are probably going in the
right direction. MARC is a nasty pain from the point of view of database
design (although it's got nothing on the foolishness that is the punctuation
standard!).
There are, by the way, some other things to consider when thinking about
MARC. Don't forget that the ALA standardised on the ANSEL character set, so
diacritic support in the MARC records you have (or might get easily) will
probably not be what you expect. I know that the Library of Congress has
uploaded some data with ISO character sets instead; at least one other
company (DRA) does this with Unicode (DRA is also using OOSQL, so the
buzzwords start flying fast and heavy).
Just thought I'd correct myself, for the sake of accuracy.
--
Andrew Sullivan Computer Services
<sullivana@bpl.on.ca> Burlington Public Library
+1 905 639 3611 x158 2331 New Street
Burlington, Ontario, Canada L7R 1J4