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+%# $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
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+%# $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" &>