Search results

The purpose of this paper is to provide background and context on the need for a new interlibrary loan (ILL) system interoperability standard, describe the basic purpose and structure of ISO 18626, information and documentation – interlibrary Loan Transactions – and outline steps for the new standard’s development and implementation.

The author’s paper is based on her expertise as a member of the working group TC46/SC4/WG14 Interlibrary Loan Transactions, charged with development, implementation and promotion of the ISO 18626 standard.

The ISO 18626 standard is needed to replace the outdated standard ISO 10160/10161. It consists of simple messages, namely, a request message; a supplying library message; and a requesting library message. Messages are encoded using XML. Balloting on the draft standard was unanimously approved in December 2013, and a fully developed ISO 18626 standard is expected to be in production in one to two years.

This paper reports on a developing standard that will impact ILL systems used by libraries around the globe.As the world shrinks and user’s demands grow, sending interlibrary loan (ILL) requests to other libraries, especially if multiple computer systems or catalogs are involved, has not simplified correspondingly. Even as individual ILL processes have become more streamlined, the need to interact with libraries – and the ILL systems they use – around the globe has dramatically increased. While an international standard, ISO 10160/10161, has been available for 20 years, the minimal acceptance and use of the standard has not provided the interoperability that we had hoped for and need. Work is currently underway to remedy this situation – a standard for the twenty-first century. This paper will provide the context in which this new standard emerged and was written, as well as outline what the new standard will look like and the next steps once the standard has been approved.

Reduced funding, global competition and technological change are forcing libraries and information centres to turn to new methods of providing services. Publishers of scientific and technical information expect printed journals to remain their primary product for several more years, despite the advent of electronic journals. Library collections will continue to be largely paper‐based, but clients will demand much faster document delivery services from them. Many libraries must also maximize the investment in their collections by expanding their clientele. Electronic scanning of documents coupled with transmission over high‐speed, high‐capacity networks offers a potential solution to these problems. For more than a year, CISTI has been using proprietary imaging workstations to supply documents to one of its branches. Much more flexibility is needed to reach the disparate receiving equipment used by a varied Canadian and international clientele. Describes experience with the Ariel Workstation, developed by the Research Libraries Group, and CISTI′s own work towards a generic imaging workstation, able to transmit to a variety of receivers including identical scanning workstations, other workstations, facsimile machines and microcomputers with facsimile boards. Ability to rationalize library collections is seen as an important consequence.

“Included in these supplements are additions, eliminations, and changes of classification numbers and the subject terminology covered by these numbers. New matter for the indexes and supplemental tables to the individual schedules is also fully represented.” Information for the cumulations is from Library of Congress sources.