The Z39.50 information retrieval standard

Although the Z39.50 standard is not being widely adopted by the Internet co mmunity, it is a mature standard which represents over two decades of colla boration between experts in the information retrieval community. The rapid growth in networked computers has motivated the development of this standar d from its origins in the bibliographic domain to becoming a general-purpos e information retrieval standard. This tutorial provides an insight into wh at may at first sight seem to be an overly complex standard and explains so me of the main concepts that provide potential for making the protocol a ke y part of the future of information retrieval. The focus is from a computer networking perspective, and a deliberate attempt has been made not to refe rence the work in terms of its current popularity amongst the librarian com munity.