Indexing periodicals with Zebra

Hegyi Ádám <dombi@pollux.bibl.u-szeged.hu>

SZTE Egyetemi Könyvtár

The digitised version of the periodical Széphalom has been completed at the University Library.

Our objectives were to archive the document, to provide easier accessibility to it and to build a full-text database. First of all, the text was converted into XML. The next task was to find a free-text indexing software which can interpret XML tags. Zebra complies with this requirement, and also supports Z93.50. Zebra is freely available for non-profit organisations.

Based on the most common search-criteria, certain tags were specified in XML DTD. These were defined for different types of texts, such as poems, short stories, including options like searching for title, author, lines, etc.

Zebra is able to provide a uniform search interface on the WWW, as Z39.50 is integrated into the program. It seemed especially suitable for the University Library as it can index XML as well as handle Z39.50.

Zebra, as it fulfils the specifications for the Z39.50 protocol, also functions as a Z-server.

In this way, with the help of a special utility, our database has become directly accessible on the WWW.