INTERLIBRARY LOAN PROTOCOLS: AN INTRODUCTION AND REVIEW OF PROBLEM AREAS Available to Purchase

This article gives an introductory description of the proposals for an international standard for interlibrary loan (ILL) protocols which are being discussed in ISO TC46/SC4/WG4. The proposals are for application level protocols within the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) framework: an ILL Service Definition and an ILL Protocol Specification are being developed, and should reach the Draft Proposal stage late in 1988. The Service Definition lists 21 services required for ILL, defining standard messages to be interchanged during the ILL process, and also defining the data elements to be included in the messages. Time sequence diagrams and transaction states are included. The Protocol Specification defines the data elements to be included in each Application Protocol Data Unit (APDU) as structured data types described using ASN1 (Abstract Syntax Notation Number 1). The protocol is now being modified to reflect the needs of union catalogue organizations and other intermediaries. Implementation of the protocol will depend upon organizations' ability to adapt their current (largely manual) ILL operations to automated systems for both requesting and responding libraries, and upon international acceptance of standardized ILL messages. Much progress remains to be made.