-<p>
- Hello and welcome to IRSpy
-</p>
-<p>
- ### Adam Horvath writes:
-</p>
-<blockquote>
- It is not clear what IRSpy tests? It should be described in the Home
- page. We tested e.g. our Yazproxy (to our Amicus' Z39.50 server) and
- thought that IRSpy would test it as an SRU server, but instead of
- that IRSpy tested the Amicus' Z39.50 server sending RPN's. We did not
- find any SRU or SRW target except the IRSspy own database. The
- Search:Title test was again a bib-1 search. We are confused.
-</blockquote>
-<blockquote>
- The [edit] labels are umbigous. How one can find out what the author means
- in the context of describing a Z39.50 service. Some explanation would
- be needed. I hesitated when I had to fill in these labels:
-</blockquote>
-<blockquote>
- It is not clear what does this [copy target] function do?
-</blockquote>
+%# $Id: home.mc,v 1.6 2007-03-14 17:25:53 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*&_sort=dc.title&_count=9999&_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>