Staff Papers
Beyond Dublin Core: The Role of Directories in Seamless Document Delivery
A paper presented by Judith Pearce and Andrew Wells, National Library of Australia, at the Information Online 2001 Conference held in Sydney, Australia, 16-18 January 2001
Abstract
The important role of directories in the national resource sharing infrastructure is addressed and the goals and activities of the National Library's Directories Project are described. This Project has three components: the new online version of the Interlibrary Resource Sharing Directory (ILRS); the application of X.500 to the ILRS for the PRIDE Project; and the revision of ISO2146, the international standard for library directories. The new ILRS will have improved integration with Kinetica and LIDDAS, the key national resource sharing systems.
Introduction
At last years VALA Conference in Melbourne, two speakers questioned the continuing role of document delivery and resource sharing. Tony Barry asked if document delivery was an idea whose time has gone? [Barry, p. 1] while Kathryn Pearson noted that one could be forgiven for wondering whether document delivery does still have have a future. [Pearson, p. 9]. Both speakers concluded that document delivery had some future, at least in the medium term, because libraries would need to operate in a hybrid print/digital environment. This reflects a consensus that is driving a number of initiatives to develop the national resource sharing infrastructure in Australia, both at the policy and technical level. The purpose of this paper is to update you on just one of these initiatives - the National Library of Australias Directories Project. However, we thought it would also be useful to review some of the other initiatives that are starting at last to break ground in this complex area; and also to make some predictions about the shape of future resource sharing services. By doing this we hope to demonstrate the importance of directory services in linking people to resources and also why we felt the need to call the paper Beyond Dublin Core.
Whats Breaking Ground
In the area of resource sharing policy, probably the most significant work to date is reflected in the new Interlibrary Resource Sharing Code which was launched on 15 January 2001 to replace the Australian Interlending Code developed by ACLIS [ILRS Code]. This code is the work of the National Resource Sharing Working Group which was set up in May 1999 to investigate ways of improving resource sharing services and standards. In parallel with development of the code, a significant number of resource sharing systems have begun to enter the market place that are compliant with both the Z39.50 and ISO ILL Protocols. This enables them to communicate with other Z39.50 compliant systems to discover holdings and check availability; and with other ISO ILL compliant systems to issue, receive and process requests.
One of these systems, Fretwell-Downings OLIB VDX, is now being used to operate the national interlending utility [Kinetica]. This product is also being customised to form the basis of the Local Interlending and Document Delivery Administration system (or LIDDAS) currently being implemented by the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee (AVCC) in a number of Australian university libraries [Pearsons VALA paper is about this project]. Kinetica has also delivered a national bibliographic utility which supports Z39,50, enabling Australian libraries to place the National Bibliographic Database at the desktops of many users. The Kinetica Document Delivery Payments System provides billing reconciliation for document supply between libraries.
Looking forward
It is hard to predict what resource sharing and document delivery will look like in 5 or 10 years but we have made some assumptions, which we address below under the following headings:
- Print/physical resources.
- Digital resources.
- Digital resource holdings.
Print/physical resources
We can assume that libraries will continue to hold some material in print and physical form and that they will continue to meet the needs of other libraries and their users for access to this material through tools such as union catalogues and interlibrary lending systems. The National Bibliographic Database will remain a key tool and there will be an ongoing role for collaborative resource sharing systems at the regional and sectoral levels, linked to the national bibliographic utility. The new ILRS code should ensure greater predictability, consistency, and flexibility in obtaining materials. Users expectations for unmediated access should also have been met through implementation and enhancement of systems like the LIDDAS that check local availability and minimise the need for mediation through the application of codified business rules.
Digital resources
In a predominantly digital environment, digital materials will take precedence over print materials as more resources become available in this form. There will be significant portal developments over the next 5-10 years, with my library type portals that replace the OPAC at the desktop coexisting with regional, sectoral and corporate portals and online learning systems. Already metadata to support online learning systems has become an area for standardisation to support the sharing of online courses across institutions. Digital collections targeted to the needs of users will still play a role in this environment. Collection development policies will need to embrace selection guidelines for both digital and physical resources. Linking to a freely accessible resource will be an act of selection and there will be opportunities for libraries to gain efficiencies through the sharing of selection decisions, resource guides, resource descriptions and the maintenance of links. There will be an ongoing role for national bibliographic services in this environment, with outputs that include a national metadata repository service and services that allow seamless discovery of both print and digital resources selected for inclusion in the distributed national collection.
Various subject gateways are now operational or under development that catalogue Australian digital resources, using a variety of data standards and protocols for information creation and retrieval. Some of these will continue to reference predominantly digital resources. In some disciplines, however, new business models will emerge that combine the aims and objectives of traditional indexing and abstracting services with the subject gateway paradigm. The Australian Literature Electronic Gateway Project led by the Australian Defence Force Academy is one such example [ALEG]. It aims to provide a national model for the development of subject gateways which provide access to print and electronic information resources, especially in the humanities. Challenges this project is addressing include document delivery for print material made visible through the gateway.
Digital resource holdings
Significant changes will occur over the next 5-10 years in the scholarly communication paradigm if the aims of projects such as the Open Archives Initiative [OAI] are achieved. Even so, some digital resources will still be made available only under certain conditions, and direct online access to them may not be available for all users. There will be an ongoing need at least in the short and medium term for university and research libraries to hold access rights to aggregated electronic journal services and other fee-based digital resources for online use by their communities. To facilitate resource sharing, libraries will continue to form consortia to share the costs of providing access to this material and press for fair dealing rights when negotiating licences. In cases where the negotiated access rights permit traditional document delivery, this will be managed through the same systems and processes set up to support traditional resource sharing roles. Libraries compliant with the new ILRS Code will report their holdings of electronic resources to the National Bibliographic Database with an indication of their availability for resource sharing.
How close are we to this scenario? Until recently, contributions to the National Bibliographic Database have been chiefly for print/physical resources. Libraries have been listing their holdings of electronic journals on their Intranets, bypassing the local catalogue because of the difficulty of maintaining the currency of listings. Now Kinetica libraries are being encouraged to add records and links for digital resources. To explore the enablers and inhibitors to doing this, the Kinetica Expert Advisory Group on Internet Resources conducted a pilot study during 2000, where catalogue records for ScienceDirect were added to the National Bibliographic Database [KEAGAER]. This has made the titles in ScienceDirect visible in the National Bibliographic Database, making these resources available for conditional use by other libraries.
Resource sharing platforms such as LIDDAS should also be extended to ensure delivery of both print and electronic information resources to the desktop for all members of the higher education community. This is one of the areas identified for targeted technical development in the study recently commissioned by the Coalition for Innovation in Scholarly Communication [CISC, p. 27] to identify the gaps in technical infrastructures needing to be addressed to sustain effective national networked information delivery .
Beyond Dublin Core
Both MARC and Dublin Core will continue to play important roles as resource description standards, together with schemas such as the Encoded Archival Description for the detailed description of primary research materials. Search and retrieval protocols such as Z39.50 or its XML-based successors will be in widespread use to enable interoperability between resource discovery systems. But new directory service standards and protocols will also need to be in place to support unmediated access to information in this environment. These will go beyond simple resource description and discovery to provide the glue needed to link people with resources. Different kinds of directory service, or glue will be needed to address different stages in the resource discovery process.
Service discovery
One type of directory service will provide access to descriptions of resource collections. These will enable users to identify which collections will satisfy their current information need and the access methods and conditions that apply. Most of the work on this requirement has come out of the eLib Program. Recognising the need for a schema that described services providing access to collections as well as collections themselves, UKOLN developed a data schema called the Collection Level Description, based on, but going beyond Dublin Core. This schema has now been further developed as the Simple Collection Description by the UK Research Support Libraries Programme [RSLP].
Authorisation and authentication
Another type of directory service will authorise users to access specific services. A single authentication process at the desktop will ensure that, wherever users are, the services they are authorised to use through a given portal are available to them. The need for separate authentication transactions to access specific services will be minimised. Most of the work on this requirement has come out of the higher education community. Many university libraries in the UK now use a product called Athens for access management. Significant deficiencies in Athens are to be addressed by a replacement called Sparta [Robiette]. Athens and similar initiatives in the United States and Australia are based on proprietary systems. The PRIDE Project has been testing an X.500-enabled systems architecture that will support the development of local authorisation services that interact with target information services through X.500 protocols to authenticate users [PRIDE].
Interlibrary loan and document delivery
A third type of directory service will support unmediated interlibrary loan and document delivery. This is the focus of the National Library of Australias Directories Project. An article in the September 2000 issue of DLIB Magazine provides a detailed background to the Directories Project with a strong standards focus [Pearce]. The rest of this paper is devoted to an update to the project.
Directories Project Update
Since March 1998 the Australian Libraries Gateway has provided online access to information about Australian libraries, their collections and services. One of the differences between this Gateway and many other listings of libraries on the Internet is that each library can update information about itself via the Web. Take-up of the Gateway has been strong, with over 5,400 libraries now having entries in the database. However, the service currently has two major limitations: libraries have to maintain similar information in a separate Interlibrary Resource Sharing (ILRS) Directory; and there is no capability for sharing this information with systems like Kinetica and the LIDDAS. As part of the LIDDAS implementation, a need was identified for a means of recording resource sharing information once only and enabling diverse systems to access this information in machine-readable form. This need is being addressed through three interrelated projects: development of a new online version of the Interlibrary Resource Sharing Directory that will operate within the same technical framework as the Australian Libraries Gateway; the enabling of this directory for access via X.500 protocols; and the revision of ISO 2146, the international standard for library directories, to provide a standards-based framework for the sharing of directory data.
Interlibrary Resource Sharing (ILRS) Directory
Work is now almost complete on the new ILRS Directory. A test version is being demonstrated as part of the Web Showcase at Information Online 2001 and implementation is set for the end of February.
The new version of the ILRS Directory differs from the previous version in four main ways:
- Each entry is tightly coupled to the Librarys Australian Libraries Gateway entry. Only information unique to a Librarys interlibrary loan/ document delivery service need be maintained in the ILRS Directory. This will be done by the Library itself, through a simple online process, with updates taking effect immediately.
- The directory is fully aligned with the new ILRS code. The forms for recording charges reflect the service levels and standards defined in the code. The directory is actually part of the code with compliant libraries undertaking to publish their resource sharing policy in the ILRS Directory and keep the entry updated, including all charges.
- The underlying data model is sufficiently rigorous to support querying of the directory by other systems to discover, for example, ILL/document delivery services in a given region, or serving a given category of user or supporting a given service level and range of charges.
- It is also extensible, to enable changes in service models and standards to be reflected in the data collected.If it became necessary to collect information, for example, about charges for the digitisation-on-demand of heritage collection material this would be a simple user interface change.
LIDDAS/X500
In the first instance the ILRS Directory data will be stored in the same Oracle-based database used for the National Librarys other directory services - the Australian Libraries Gateway, the National Directory of Australian Oral History Collections and (next cab off the rank) the Directory of Australian Map Collections. This has simplified the size of the project and minimized the risks of migrating the Librarys directory services to a new technology before the services have bedded down. However, a version of the data will be maintained in an X.500 testbed server.
Work will begin on this project in late January, as soon as the X.500 schema has been finalized. The PRIDE Project has developed a PRIDE synchronization agent that will enable libraries with LIDDAS systems regularly to download directory information from the X.500 test bed server for use in local interlibrary lending and document delivery transactions. A similar synchronisation of directory data is planned between the X.500 test bed server and the national interlending utility (Kinetica Document Delivery). The intention is to enable this information to be maintained once only through the ILRS Directory and to be shared between applications engaged in resource sharing activities.
In future developments it is expected that the two versions of the ILRS Directory will be merged and that resource sharing platforms like the LIDDAS and Kinetica Document Delivery will be able to query the the ILRS Directory directly, using X.500 or other standard protocols. There will no longer be a requirement for such systems to duplicate directory data in their own databases except where it is specific to a local operation or service.
Conclusion
At the ALIA Conference last year, Brian Hawkins said in his paper on Libraries, Knowledge Management, and Higher Education in an Electronic Environment that The dream to which we need to aspire is that all scholarly and research publications (including university, governmental, research, and museum sites) be universally available on the Internet in perpetuity [Hawkins]. This is a vision that could not even have been articulated a few years ago. Now it is starting to look possible. Organizations are moving beyond pilot projects and looking seriously at the costs of digitizing large collections of material. The volume of original and out-of-print material in Library collections still remains enormous, however, and much of this material is of research interest. For at least the next five-ten years, there will be a requirement for hybrid information services. Digital materials will become predominant but they also offer collection development challenges and resource sharing opportunities. There are still many gaps to be addressed before the goal of seamless unmediated access to print and electronic material can be met but there have been significant developments over the last two years, not least in the area of directory services.
References
[ALEG] Australian Literature Electronic Gateway (ALEG). Technical Development Status Homepage. ADFA. Online. Available: http://131.236.80.59/. 2001-01-15.
[Barry] Barry, Tony. Document delivery an idea whose time has gone? VALA2000 Conference Papers. Wednesday 16 February 2000. Online (PDF). Available: http://www.vala.org.au/vala2000/2000pprs/wed2000.htm. 2001-01-15.
[CISC] CAVAL Limited. Mapping infrastructure for national networked information delivery: A discussion paper prepared for the Coalition for Innovation in Scholarly Communication. June 2000. Online (Word document). Available: http://www.anu.edu.au/caul/cisc/. 2000-11-23
[Hawkins] Hawkins, Brian. Libraries, Knowledge Management, and Higher Education in an Electronic Environment. Proceedings. ALIA 2000. 25 October 2000. Online. Available: http://www.alia.org.au/conferences/alia2000/proceedings/brian.hawkins.html. 2001-01-15.
[ILRS Code] Australian Interlibrary Resource Sharing (ILRS) Code. Online. Available: http://www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/ilrscode/. 2001-01-15.
[KEAGAER] Kinetica Expert Advisory Group on Access to Electronic Resources. NLA. Online. Available: http://www.nla.gov.au/kinetica/eag_aer.html. 2001-01-15.
[Kinetica] Kinetica Home Page. Online. Available: http://www.nla.gov.au/kinetica/docdel.html. 2001-01-15.
[OAI] Open Archives Home Page. Online. Available: http://www.openarchives.org/. 2001-01-15.
[Pearce] Directories of libraries and related organisations. DLIB Magazine. Vol. 6, No. 9. September 2000. Online. Available: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september00/pearce/09pearce.html. 2001-01-15.
[Pearson] Pearson, Kathryn. Changing the face of interlibrary loans: LIDDAS at Macquarie University. VALA2000 Conference Papers. Wednesday 16 February 2000. Online (PDF). Available: http://www.vala.org.au/vala2000/2000pprs/wed2000.htm. 2001-01-15.
[PRIDE] PRIDE: People and Resource Identification for Distributed Environments. Online. Available: http://lirn.viscount.org.uk/pride/. 2000-09-13.
[Robiette] Robiette, Alan. Sparta: the Second-Generation Access Management System for UK Further and Higher Education. A discussion paper on the requirements. JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee). 20th September 2000. Online. Available: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/pub00/sparta_disc.html. 2001-01-15.
[RSLP] RSLP Collection Description. Collection Description Schema. V 1.11 2000/05/23. Online. UKOLN. Available: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/rslp/schema/. 2000-09-13.
