Director of the Garfield Library in Brunswick, New York, and author of A Practical Guide to Internet Filters (Neal-Schuman, 1997)
kgs@bluehighways.com
Column for October 1998
This summer a post about interlibrary loan on NYLINE, the Internet discussion list for New York State librarians, caught my eye. The Ramapo Catskills Library System (RCLS), a public library consortium, reported that in July 1998 it had successfully exchanged a test interlibrary loan query with the Finger Lakes Library System using a special software package that allowed the libraries to dynamically search each other's catalogs (over the Internet, of course).
Loaning a book to another library is not news; what made the RCLS/Finger Lakes test unusual (aside from the fact that the library systems didn't actually request or supply a book) was that two library catalogs were directly "talking" to one another, using a new ILL method.
However, let me make a brief detour to discuss a serious problem in librarianship: It's up to each and every librarian to prevent the creation of a YAPA (Yet Another Painful Acronym). I'm being deliberately vague about the name of this new ILL method because I'm hesitant to use the clunky ones I've heard so far: Protocol-based ILL and ISO ILL. Out loud, neither sounds very poetic: PILL? Is he ILL? And with the latter, you have to explain why ISO is backwards (it stands for International Organization for Standards, and that's translated from another language). Why not just Standards-Based ILL (SBILL, pronounced "ess-bill") or even Truly Cool ILL (TCILL, pronounced "tickle")?
But I digress. In the traditional ILL model, libraries use a third database, such as OCLC, to lend, supply, respond to, and manage requests. If you want to borrow Bleak House, your ILL librarian logs into OCLC, queries the database, sees who has the book, and places requests. Another model, used in some consortia, is to compile data from a variety of libraries into one CD database, and use that for requests placed inside the same consortium.
Jerry Kuntz, systems librarian at RCLS, was motivated to pursue new methods for ILL because the multitype consortium serving his area relied on a CD catalog, which had the usual problems with these catalogs; for example, they require the creation of multiple compact discs, and they are never really current. They also lack mechanisms for requesting, supplying, and managing materials. Even after you find Bleak House in the union catalog, you can't do anything about it; you have to create a request in another system, such as OCLC, or manually, using forms. That adds extra time and steps to the requests. So Jerry and colleagues set out to develop what they call a Virtual Union Catalog, or (Watch out! YAPA alert!) VUC.
Here's the prescription for this new ILL method:
1 IOLS with Z39.50 server (IOLS = Integrated Online Library System = your catalog)
1 ISO ILL module or system that will work in conjunction with this (module = widget)
In the new model, the third database isn't needed. Instead, the library catalog software either is designed from the ground up to be able to talk directly to other catalogs for resource-sharing purposes, or has a widget that provides this capability. ("Widget" is a highly technical term referring to a piece of add-on software you either pay for or get for free, depending on your vendor.) The widget for the RCLS VUC is based on Ameritech's catalog software, but many other vendors—including but definitely not limited to DRA, Library Corporation, SIRSI, and Geac—are developing similar add-on tools or built-in capabilities. For a longer list of participating vendors see the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Web site.
This new ILL method relies on Z39.50, an international standard for information exchange that allows library catalogs, regardless of their vendors, to share information queries using a common language. (I just knew there was a practical use for Z39.50, even if the name is completely inscrutable! See American Libraries, June/July 1996, p. 86.)
An easy PILL to swallow
Mary Jackson, ARL's Senior Program Officer for Access Services (called by some the "Delphic Oracle of Interlibrary Loan") answered the burning but unspoken question: Will all the many different library catalogs using the new ILL method work together to share ILL requests? Yes, says Jackson, because "through the Interlibrary Loan Protocol Implementors Group (IPIG), ARL is providing a forum to ensure that Protocol-based ILL systems will interoperate." (IPIG? Is that "eye-pig?")
A PILL for loneliness
As exciting as this new ILL method seems, Jerry Kuntz admitted that locally it has "no immediate practical use until traditional ILL partners had similar systems." RCLS publicized its test exchange for the same reason the astronauts put a flag on the moon: to alert others that they exist.
Based on ARL's helpful status sheet, we are very much in the experimental stages of this ILL model. But I suspect Kuntz won't be lonely for long: Many systems are moving toward or at least considering this ILL model. Patricia Wallace, chief of the information access division at Enoch Pratt Free Library, told me that Maryland libraries have fielded an ILL system with the (relatively pretty) acronym of MARINA (Maryland Anything, Anytime, Anywhere Resources in Network Application). MARINA allows protocol-based ILL across a variety of IOLS servers, including DRA, Ameritech, Carl, Innovative Interfaces, Sirsi, and Geac. According to Wallace, "The system has been in operation since April 1998, and it has handled over 20,000 requests so far." Reach out and touch someone—and get a copy of Bleak House in the bargain!