Fixed bad dereferencing of null settings

[pazpar2-moved-to-github.git] / doc / book.xml

diff --git a/doc/book.xml b/doc/book.xml
index d9394b5..fff249a 100644 (file)
--- a/doc/book.xml
+++ b/doc/book.xml
@@ -9,13 +9,16 @@
      <!ENTITY % common SYSTEM "common/common.ent">
      %common;
 ]>
-<!-- $Id: book.xml,v 1.8 2007-04-10 08:48:55 adam Exp $ -->
+<!-- $Id: book.xml,v 1.11 2007-04-10 15:44:33 quinn Exp $ -->
 <book id="book">
  <bookinfo>
   <title>Pazpar2 - User's Guide and Reference</title>
   <author>
    <firstname>Sebastian</firstname><surname>Hammer</surname>
   </author>
+  <author>
+   <firstname>Adam</firstname><surname>Dickmeiss</surname>
+  </author>
   <releaseinfo>&version;</releaseinfo>
   <copyright>
    <year>&copyright-year;</year>
@@ -333,7 +336,7 @@
     </section>
 
     <section id="client">
-      <title>Client development</title>
+      <title>Client development overview</title>
       <para>
         You can use pazpar2 from any environment that allows you to use
        webservices. The initial goal of the software was to support
@@ -359,6 +362,74 @@
        can be fetched using the 'record' command.
       </para>
     </section>
+
+    <section id="nonstandard">
+      <title>Connecting to non-standard resources</title>
+      <para>
+        Pazpar2 uses Z39.50 as its switchboard language -- i.e. as far as it
+       is concerned, all resources speak Z39.50. It is, however, equipped
+       to handle a broad range of different server behavior, through
+       configurable query mapping and record normalization. If you develop
+       configuration, stylesheets, etc., for a new type of resources, we
+       encourage you to share your work. But you can also use pazpar2 to
+       connect to hundreds of resources that do not support standard
+       protocols.
+      </para>
+
+      <para>
+        For a growing number of resources, Z39.50 is all you need. Over the
+       last few years, a number of commercial, full-text resources have
+       implemented Z39.50. These can be used through pazpar2 with little or
+       no effort. Resources that use non-standard record formats will
+       require a bit of XSLT work, but that's all.
+      </para>
+
+      <para>
+        But what about resources that don't support Z39.50 at all? The NISO
+       SRU (MXG) protocol is slowly gathering steam. Other resources might
+       support OpenSearch, private, XML/HTTP-based protocols, or something
+       else entirely. Some databases exist only as web user interfaces and
+         will require screen-scraping. Still others exist only as static
+         files, or perhaps as databases supporting the OAI-PMH protocol.
+         There is hope! Read on.
+      </para>
+
+      <para>
+        Index Data continues to advocate the support of open standards. We
+       work with database vendors to support standards, so you don't have
+       to worry about programming against non-standard services. We also
+       provide tools (see <ulink
+       url="http://www.indexdata.com/simpleserver">SimpleServer</ulink>)
+       which make it comparatively easy to build gateways against servers
+       with non-standard behavior. Again, we encourage you to share any
+       work you do in this direction.
+      </para>
+
+      <para>
+        But the bottom line is that working with non-standard resources in
+       metasearching is really, really hard. If you want to build a
+       project with pazpar2, and you need access to resources with
+       non-standard interfaces, we can help. We run gateways to more than
+       2,000 popular, commercial databases and other resources, making it simple
+       to plug them directly into pazpar2. For a small annual fee per
+       database, we can help you establish connections to your licensed
+       resources. Meanwhile, you can help! If you build your own
+       standards-compliant gateways, host them for others, or share the
+       code! And tell your vendors that they can save everybody money and
+       increase the appeal of their resources by supporting standards.
+      </para>
+
+      <para>
+        There are those who will ask us why we are using Z39.50 as our
+       switchboard langyage rather than a different protocol. Basically,
+       we believe that Z39.50 is presently the most widely implemented 
+       information retrieval protocol that has the level of functionality
+       required to support a good metasearching experience (structured
+       searching, structured, well-defined results). It is also compact and
+       efficient, and there is a very broad range of tools available to
+       implement it.
+      </para>
+    </section>
   </chapter> <!-- Using pazpar2 -->
 
  <reference id="reference">
@@ -378,7 +449,7 @@
    
    <para>
     Pazpar2,
-    Copyright &copy; 2006-2007 Index Data.
+    Copyright &copy; &copyright-year; Index Data.
    </para>
    
    <para>