From 08567c060d32718a5337ea6781cd8ca0206c63fb Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Mike Taylor <mike@indexdata.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 11:43:59 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] New

---
 web/htdocs/details/software.mc |   69 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 web/htdocs/software.html       |    3 ++
 2 files changed, 72 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 web/htdocs/details/software.mc
 create mode 100644 web/htdocs/software.html

diff --git a/web/htdocs/details/software.mc b/web/htdocs/details/software.mc
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0109b81
--- /dev/null
+++ b/web/htdocs/details/software.mc
@@ -0,0 +1,69 @@
+%# $Id: software.mc,v 1.1 2007-03-30 11:43:59 mike Exp $
+     <div class="essay">
+     <p>
+      <b>IRSpy</b> maintains a registry of information retrieval
+      targets supporting standard IR protocols such as
+      <a href="http://lcweb.loc.gov/z3950/agency/"
+	>ANSI/NISO Z39.50 (ISO 23950)</a>
+      and
+      <a href="http://www.loc.gov/sru"
+	>the SRU/SRW web services</a>.
+      Each registry entry consists of both mechanical information,
+      such as the indexes supported for searching and the record
+      syntax and schemas supported for retrievel, and metadata such as
+      database titles, authors and descriptions.
+     </p>
+     <p>
+      IRSpy supports editing of the metadata, and automatically
+      discovers mechanical information by probing the registered
+      targets using a set of feature-tests.  Tests are implemented by
+%# Link to /doc.html?module=ZOOM/IRSpy/Test.pm is not ready yet
+      individual plugins,
+      so new tests can be added without changing the core code.
+     </p>
+     <p>
+      For efficiency, probing of targets is done in parallel, using a
+      pool of a few hundred concurrent connections which is refilled
+      from a queue whenever a target in the pool completes its tests.
+      Testing the entire current registry of 1908 targets takes about
+      three elapsed hours on commodity hardware (Intel CPU, 2.8 GHz,
+      256 Kb cache, 4 Mbit/s network connection).
+     </p>
+     <p>
+      IRSpy's Web user interface allows users to
+      <a href="/find.html">search</a>
+      and
+      <a href="/find.html?dc.title=^a*&amp;_sort=dc.title&amp;_count=9999&amp;_search=Search">browse</a>
+      the registry, and to view
+      <a href="http://x.irspy.indexdata.com/stats.html">statistics</a>.
+      Authenticated users may also edit target data, run tests and add
+      new targets from the Web UI.  A set of command-line tools is
+      also provided, together with facilities for re-running the tests
+      periodically.
+     </p>
+     <p>
+      IRSpy is implemented in Perl, using the
+      <a href="http://search.cpan.org/~mirk/Net-Z3950-ZOOM/"
+	>ZOOM-Perl</a>
+      module to access Z39.50 and SRU/SRW databases.  The registry
+      database is implemented using
+      <a href="http://indexdata.com/zebra/"
+	>Zebra</a>,
+      also accessed using ZOOM-Perl.  The database
+      <a href="/doc.html?module=ZOOM/IRSpy/WebService.pod"
+	>can be interrogated using SRU/SRW<a/>:
+      it conforms to the
+      <a href="http://srw.cheshire3.org/profiles/ZeeRex/"
+	>ZeeRex application profile</a>,
+      and can supply registry records both in extended
+      <a href="http://explain.z3950.org/dtd/"
+	>ZeeRex format</a>
+      (now ratified as
+      <a href="http://www.niso.org/standards/standard_detail.cfm?std_id=816"
+	>ANSI/NISO Z39.92</a>
+      and in
+      <a href="http://www.loc.gov/standards/sru/record-schemas.html"
+	>Dublin Core</a>
+      summary format.
+     </p>
+     </div>
diff --git a/web/htdocs/software.html b/web/htdocs/software.html
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..000e048
--- /dev/null
+++ b/web/htdocs/software.html
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+%# $Id: software.html,v 1.1 2007-03-30 11:43:59 mike Exp $
+<& /chrome/layout.mc, %ARGS, title => "About the IRSpy software",
+    component => "/details/software.mc" &>
-- 
1.7.10.4