8th Interlending and Document Supply International Conference, Canberra Australia 28-31 October 2003
 



Peer-to-peer or bust: how RLG's SHARES Resource Sharing Consortium staked its very existence on the promise of the ISO ILL protocols

Dennis Massie

Abstract | Paper in [PDF] Portable Document Format (PDF)
Presentation in Microsoft® PowerPoint® format

RLG and its four founding members organized a resource sharing network -- SHARES -- in 1975. Today, over 150 libraries at research repositories in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia participate in this successful and evolving partnership that in recent years has focused on using technology to overcome the many barriers to international resource sharing.

By 1998, some SHARES members complained that RLG's centralized interlibrary loan system, RLIN ILL, was behind the times and becoming a barrier to SHARES participation. In response, RLG created ILL Manager, a peer-to-peer alternative that allows users to exchange interlibrary loan requests with other systems through the use of an international standard, the ISO ILL protocols. By 2001, one in three SHARES interlibrary loan requests had ILL Manager on at least one end of the transaction. But three quarters of SHARES institutions still clung to the more familiar RLIN ILL.

In June 2002, RLG asked staff at SHARES institutions to take part in a bold experiment. Given the successful performance of ILL Manager and the increasing interest by other developers in implementing the ISO ILL protocols, RLG decided to retire the centralized RLIN ILL system and asked all SHARES institutions to move onto ILL Manager or any other peer-to-peer system that could prove interoperability with ILL Manager. SHARES libraries had one year to complete the transition if they were to remain in the program.

This paper will recount how SHARES became the world's first completely peer-to-peer resource sharing consortium utilizing various standards-based ILL systems made by different developers, fulfilling the ultimate promise of the ISO ILL protocols.

 

 

 
  National Library of Australia Australian Library and Information Association International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions