JAFER Toolkit Project
| Published date | 01 March 2005 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/03055720510588461 |
| Date | 01 March 2005 |
| Pages | 49-51 |
| Author | Matthew J. Dovey,Colin Tatham,Antony Corfield |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
JAFER Toolkit Project
Matthew J. Dovey
Oxford E-Science Centre, Oxford, UK, and
Colin Tatham and Antony Corfield
Oxford University Library Services, Oxford, UK
Abstract
Purpose – The paper looks at the JAFER Toolkit Project.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper describes the JAFER toolkit for developing Z39.50
clients and servers using XML and XSLT and investigates how it might be used.
Findings – It has already been used on a number of projects and is being migrated to open source to
enable further collaborative development by its users.
Originality/value – The paper is useful for those wishing or planning to use the JAFER Toolkit.
Keywords Electronic media,Information systems, Informationretrieval
Paper type Research paper
Java Access for Electronic Resource (JAFER) (www.jafer.org/) was a project funded by
the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) (www.jisc.ac.uk/) in the UK under the
Infrastructure strand of the JISC 5/99 programme of funding. This programme aimed
to produce a national managed environment for accessing high quality assured
information resources, and formed the basis of what is now known as the JISC
Information Environment.
The use of standardised protocols is a key component of the vision underlying the
JISC Information Environment. ISO 23950 (also known as Z39.50) (www.loc.gov/z3950/
agency/) is such a standard, providing a generic search interface to a variety of data
sources, including library, museum and archive collection, online information services,
geospatial databases and government information services. ISO 23950 is a complex
protocol, and the aim of JAFER was to produce a generic toolkit for developing both
clients and servers written in Java using XML and XSLT technologies. The goal was
that a competent Java programmer with a knowledge of XML and XSLT would be able
to interact with ISO 23950 clients and servers without an in-depth knowledge of ISO
23950. We also developed some tools using the toolkit designed for end users.
The client component of the JAFER toolkit consists of a Java bean with a fairly
simple interface. The programmer needs to set properties on the bean to indicate to
which server to connect. The methods you then need to call are:
.submitQuery – to send a query speci fied in an XML language (the toolkit also
includes helper functions for building the XML);
.setRecordSchema – to indicate what XML sch ema the user wants the records
return in;
.setCurrentRecord – to indicate which recor d in the response the user wishes to
access; and
.getCurrentRecord – to get the record as an XML document.
The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister www.emeraldinsight.com/0305-5728.htm
JAFER Toolkit
Project
49
VINE: The journal of information and
knowledge management systems
Vol. 35 No. 1/2, 2005
pp. 49-51
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0305-5728
DOI 10.1108/03055720510588461
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