Z39.50 at Zoom@ Pitt and OAI-PMH at NSDL

I am able to confirm noticing the quirks that “Z39.50 at Zoom@ Pitt” and “OAI-PMH at NSDL” are capable of demonstrating. For the case of the former, I think the reason why some of the databases tend to function more slowly than the others is probably because of the amount of content that is being handled. As a database needs to manage more content, it obviously has to take more time to maneuver through the increasing collection. If the load was any lighter, the database would not experience as much of this problem. And for the case of the latter, because the organization was created via a government agency, the space and proficiency it is able to afford is practically unlimited, or at least compared to what the other can achieve. However, this is not to suggest that it would be without fault. It is likely that the website could be using more than enough resources than what is potentially needed. As a result of those circumstances, so many options would end up being created for the users, only to end up narrowing down on the same sets of documents that are actually available in the website over and over again. On the other hand, these observations are all based on my own personal assumptions.