I went through many IBM web sites (and others, non IBM), trying to find some specific information about BookManager.
There are lots of info, but I was unable to find the ones I am interested on.
If you had read, or even, have any word of mouth about below questions, I would appreciate if you could share them here:
1 - Is BookManager available on z/OS-2.3?
2 - Same question, for z/OS-2.4.
3 - How many z/OS installations still have BookManager installed, and really being accessed by their users?
- Almost all (I do not believe, but....)
- A lot of customers
- Some customers
- Very few customers
- Almost none
- None (again, I do not believe, but....)
4 - When IBM launches new products, or new versions of existing products, does it still creates BookManager databases, for the help documentation, or everything now is on PDF, and/or IBM KnowledgeCenter?
5 - Are there any IBM SOD (Statement of Direction) about BookManager?
6 - Any other info you think is of some interest, about BookManager.
z/OS V2R3 is planned to be the last release to include the BookManager READ element. IBM recommends that you use IBM Knowledge Center for z/OS, which was introduced in z/OS V2R2, to access product documentation on the web or from your own local repository.
IBM Knowledge Center for z/OS is the IBM platform for delivering product documentation. It is the replacement for both BookManager READ and Library Server.
In z/OS V2R2, IBM Knowledge Center for z/OS (KC4z) became a base element of z/OS. With KC4z, and Version 5 of the Softcopy Librarian tool, your installation can manage collections of Knowledge Center content (plug-ins) in your own repositories, and serve the content to users from those repositories.
KC4z provides function that is equivalent to BookManager READ and Library Server, as follows:
Similar to BookManager READ, you can use KC4z to manage your content collections. One difference is that KC4z provides a web interface to the documentation, rather than the“green screen” TSO/E interface as found in BookManager READ.
Similar to Library Server, you can use KC4z to host and serve documentation from your own server, within your intranet. By using links on the KC4z content Landing Page for each "z/OS elements+features" product, KC4z can serve PDFs from the IBM Publications Center website. Or, if the PDFs are loaded into a KC4z repository on your system (using the collection of Adobe Indexed PDFs for "z/OS elements+features"), the PDFs can be served from a local KC4z repository.
In z/OS V2R1, IBM ended its production of BookManager Book format publications. At this time, the need to continue reading documentation by using the BookManager READ “green screen” interface on TSO/E is much reduced or eliminated.
So your answers are:
1. Yes
2. No
3. Who knows?
4. Not as of z/OS 2.1
5. Probably but the z/OS Migration manual quote above makes clear that Bookmanager is going away, with or without a Statement of Direction.
The Softcopy reader on Windows will continue to be available.
Joined: 06 Jul 2010 Posts: 765 Location: Whitby, ON, Canada
I have a Book manager screen open as I type this. Ours has not been updated since z/OS 1.13 and, given IBM's views on the topic, our local systems programmers are not interested in maintaining it. I have begged them, and promised many beers, if they would at least leave it be and not take steps to get rid of it. I am a big fan of the TSO LOOKAT command.
