The Interlibrary Loan (ILL) Protocol: The IPIG Generation

April 2000

1.0 Introduction

A decade after the initial Canadian implementation of the ILL Protocol became operational, there is renewed activity in implementing the ILL Application Standards. There are several reasons for this change.

The complexity of the Protocol is now mitigated by the availability of more client-server tools, and 4GL languages that make it easier and faster for implementors to develop applications. Developers now have more experience with the use of client-server technology, both from implementing Z39.50 and from other management applications. Implementors now have access to more sophisticated user interface technology that permits the underlying complexity of the Protocol to be masked from the system end-users.

There have been dramatic changes in the communications environment in the past 10 years. During early international ILL Protocol implementation projects, communications were impeded because the proprietary national communications networks could not interoperate with each other and the costs of building gateways between each of the networks were prohibitive. The development of the ubiquitous Internet, with substantially lower costs and international accessibility has drastically changed the communications environment.

The cost of communications has had a substantial impact on the design of the ILL Application Standards. Early e-mail services charged for each message sent and received. For that reason, the Protocol was designed to permit the exchange of a bare minimum of mandatory messages. When using the Internet, the cost of communication is no longer a major concern.

And with the reduction in communication costs and the rise in the cost of manpower, system designers are today looking at ways to automate much of the ILL communications, looking for ways to reduce the human input into the activity. Therefore, automatic system-to-system responses, tracking the exchange of messages and issuing automated responses where possible, is gaining popularity.

The increased access to information provided by the Internet creates an international market for interlending and document delivery. Patrons have access to a universal virtual catalogue and are no longer satisfied with the limitations of borrowing from within proprietary networks. Libraries are finding that rising personnel costs can be balanced with the lowering costs of computing and electronic communications.

With a downturn in the economy in the early 1990s and the belt-tightening of public agencies and institutions, libraries were forced to look for ways to maximize access to research resources while minimizing the costs associated with such activities. In 1993, the Washington-based Association of Research Libraries (ARL) established the North American Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery (NAILDD) project to work on finding ways to achieve this. Libraries needed help in re-engineering their interlibrary loan/document delivery services for networked environments. And private sector developers needed encouragement to build the ILL management software that would respond to the new environment. Working with existing standards providing system inter-operability, such as the ILL Application Standards, was recognized as a an important component in the task of re-engineering library systems.

2.0 ILL Protocol Implementors Group (IPIG)

In the fall of 1995, the ILL Protocol Implementors Group (IPIG) was formed as part of the North American Interlending and Document Delivery (NAILDD) project to work towards implementing the ILL Protocol within U.S. libraries. At the beginning, membership was restricted geographically to the U.S. and Canada. However, following pressure from the U.K. and Australia, the membership was opened to include international participation in the fall of 1996.

Work began slowly, and it took almost two years for the first implementations developed under IPIG to be released. The first two new Protocol-based systems developed by IPIG participants, Ameritech's Resource Sharing System (RSS) and TLC (the Library Corporation)'s Library.Request system, were formally announced to the library public at the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Meeting in July 1997, and the products were released to the public in the months following.

3.0 IPIG Profile

To ensure that the implementations by IPIG participants can interoperate, the Group has developed the IPIG Profile for the ISO ILL Protocol. Version 1.0 of the Profile was published in September 1999. This document identifies the set of optional Protocol actions that are required to support the interlending operations of the participants' applications, the optional Protocol messages and data elements that the IPIG participants will provide in their implementations, how messages will be exchanged (e.g., via direct communication lines or by store-and-forward methods such as e-mail), and how the messages will be coded.

4.0 An Implementor's Toolkit: TLC's Library.Connect

Many software vendors and bibliographic utility owners hesitated before tackling the task of "implementing the Protocol". Substantial programming resources and an in-depth understanding of the standard are required to develop a Protocol engine. ¹ To encourage other vendors to develop Protocol-based implementations, the Library Corporation (TLC) had made available platform independent ILL Protocol toolkit. The toolkit contains the Protocol machine as well routines for coding and decoding the ILL messages. It has been licensed to several other vendors to help them jump-start their implementations of the Protocol. Neophyte implementors have been able to code and decode ILL Protocol messages within a day when using the toolkit to develop the Protocol machine for an ILL application. The National Library of Canada, the first implementor of the Protocol, used this toolkit to fast-track development of an IPIG compliant front-end to NAVIS, their existing Protocol-based ILL management system.

5.0 Implementations based on the IPIG Profile

Several ILL message management systems now available are based on the IPIG Profile. The major bibliographic utilities (OCLC, RLG) updated their ILL management systems so that they can accept Profile-based ILL messaging. As well, both have developed stand-alone messaging systems based on the Profile. Several of the library system vendors (TLC, Epixtech [new name for Ameritech], Fretwell-Downing, Pigasus, III, Perkins) have developed their own IPIG-based systems, while other vendors (Geac, A-G Canada Ltd., Endeavor) have negotiated deals with other vendors to use some of the previously mentioned Protocol-based software as modules that will interwork with their integrated library systems. National lending libraries and document suppliers (such as the British Library, the National Library of Medicine [U.S.], CISTI and the national libraries of Canada, Australia and New Zealand) already have implemented, or are working towards implementing their own IPIG Profile-based systems. There is similar activity in major library consortia in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia and Scandinavia.

For more information on ILL messaging systems based on the IPIG Profile, check the List of Implementors' Products on the Web site of the Interlibrary Loan Application Standards Maintenance Agency, <http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/wbin/illcntct/survsee>.

Biblio Tech Review, the online journal covering information technology for libraries, carries an ILL update. The February 2000 report, based on observations at ALA MidWinter 2000, notes that ILL management systems are maturing apace: <http://www.biblio-tech.com/html/ill_update_2000.html>.

6.0 Advice to Libraries Using Early Canadian Implementations

As was outlined in Network Notes #55, "The ILL Protocol: Issues for Canadian Libraries", the ILL message management systems developed in Canada in the early 1990s (AVISO, InterLend, PEB/U.Q and the National Library of Canada's NAVIS) will not be able to interoperate with the new IPIG-based systems unless these systems have been upgraded. This is the path taken by the National Library; systems staff have added a module to NAVIS system to permit communication with IPIG Profile-based systems while keeping the existing routines for communicating with the early Canadian implementations.

The project to provide an interim solution of a transponder to convert messages from the earlier format to IPIG-based communications never became operational. The transponder was "unplugged" in the spring of 2000.

As more IPIG-based systems are installed, in Canada as well as internationally, users of the early Canadian implementation should be considering their options, whether to upgrade their existing system, or migrate to a new IPIG generation application.

It is possible to upgrade systems, as the National Library of Canada has done. Their job was made easier by using Library.Connect, the ILL Protocol toolkit from TLC. But systems using 10-year-old software, may wish to consider migrating to an IPIG Profile-based system.

7.0 Further Information

Contact Barbara Shuh at the International Organization for Standardization's Interlibrary Loan Application Standards Maintenance Agency (ILL ASMA) at the National Library of Canada

ILL ASMA

Web site: <http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/iso/ill/>

The site is a rich source of information on implementations of the standard, with links to vendor sites, testing strategies and an extensive reading list. Check here for information on standards and the Register for the ILL Application Standards.

E-mail: barbara.shuh@nlc-bnc.ca

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Note:

¹ ILL Protocol engine or machine is the computer code that is the translation of the rules of the ILL Protocol used to control the activity in a Protocol-compliant interlibrary loan application.