Association of Research Libraries
North American Interlibrary Loan and
Document Delivery Project
ILL Protocol Implementors Group

Status Report
March, 1997

BACKGROUND

The ILL Protocol Implementors Group (IPIG) was formed in late 1995 to expedite implementation of the ISO ILL Protocol (ISO 10160 & 10161) in the United States. The IPIG is one of the working groups of the North American Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery (NAILDD) Project, sponsored by the Association of Research Libraries. As of late 1995 only one organization in the United States, the Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN), was actively implementing the Protocol.

Nearly twenty ILL/DD service providers responded to an initial call to join the IPIG. During early 1996 and with encouragement and technical support from the National Library of Canada, the IPIG developed a workplan for implementation. A two-phase workplan was established. Participants agreed to implement the ILL-Request and Status-or-Order APDUs using BER encoding in Phase One. This phase was also divided into connection-oriented and store-and-forward subphases. Phase Two will include all remaining APDUs.

1996 HIGHLIGHTS

During the spring OCLC was the first to establish a testbed. The Library Corporation (TLC) announced its testbed shortly thereafter. IPIG members that have tested with either OCLC or TLC include Innovative Interfaces, DRA, Triangle Research Libraries Network, CISTI, and U.K.-based Fretwell-Downing. TLC and CISTI have partnered to develop a transponder to enable BER and EDIFACT encoded messages to be exchanged.

As the progress of the IPIG became more widely known, several organizations beyond North America expressed interest in participating in the NAILDD Project and the IPIG in particular, in large part because of the international dimensions of interlibrary loan. Over the summer the IPIG was expanded to include key overseas ILL/DD service providers, thus making the IPIG truly international in representation.

The IPIG held two meetings in 1996 and sustained work between meetings by active discussion on the TRLN-sponsored listserv. The meetings confirmed decisions and options on a number of detailed technical issues identified by implementors.

1997 ACTIVITIES

At the NAILDD Project meeting in mid-February, a number of new commitments were made to implement the Protocol, many by the end of 1997. As of mid-March 1997, thirty-four (34) organizations are represented on the IPIG, of which ten (10) represent organizations outside North America. LIBRIS (Sweden) is the IPIG's newest member. The IPIG will meet quarterly in 1997.

IPIG MEMBERS (as of March 15, 1997)

Ameritech British Library CARL Corp. CILLA Project (Australia) CISTI COPAC (U.K.) CPS Systems Committee on Institutional Cooperation DDE-ORG (India) DRA ELib (U.K.) Finsiel (Italy) Fretwell Downing (U.K.) Gaylord Innovative Interfaces ISM JEDDS Project (Australia) The Library Corp. testbed: illtest.tlcdelivers.com

LIBRIS (Sweden) Ruth Moulton, Consultant (U.K.) National Library Board of Singapore National Library of Australia National Library of Canada National Library of Medicine Network Support Inc. OCLC testbed: testenv.oclc.org 5471 with authorization checks: testevn.oclc.org 5671 Ovid Technologies RLG SIRSI TKM Software Triangle Research Library Network University of Quebec VTLS WLN

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

The IPIG welcomes additional organizations and firms committed to implementing the ISO ILL Protocol. Summaries of previous meetings and additional background information can be found on the ARL home page <http://arl.cni.org/access/access.html>. For additional information on the IPIG, please contact Mary Jackson, NAILDD Project Director, Association of Research Libraries, Washington, D.C. mary@arl.org.

Mary Jackson, Association of Research Libraries
Shirley Baker, Washington University in St. Louis

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