ZOOM-Perl is programmer’s toolkit for creating information retrieval client applications in Perl. It implements the ubiquitous ZOOM abstract API for information retrieval, and provides an easy way to make clients that can use Z39.50, SRU and SRW uniformly to search any of the many thousands of servers worldwide that implement these standard protocols.
Because ZOOM-Perl is built on the ZOOM-C component of the YAZ toolkit, it inherits that implementation’s rich support for character-set translation, XML record transformations and record-update extended services, as well as the more usual Z39.50 services Init, Search, Present, Scan and Sort and their SRU/SRW equivalents.
New! You can use Index Data’s hosted MasterKey Connect service to easily integrate remote resources that are not directly accessible by Z39.50 or SRU. Simply let us know which resources are of interest to you, and we will set up hosted connectors for you with a SRU/Z39.50 interface. We support most possible access methods, including native APIs, OAI-PMH harvesting, and screenscraping. Now you no longer have to rely on your data providers to support sensible interfaces: MasterKey Connect is the ultimate glue layer for your application.
ZOOM-Perl is freely available to download as the CPAN module Net::Z3950::ZOOM.
It is distributed under the standard licence for Perl modules, that is, under the same terms as Perl itself: either the GNU GPL or the Artistic Licence at the discretion of the user.