The emergence of distributed library services: A European perspective

European Research Letter

The Emergence of Distributed Library Services:A European Perspective

Lorcan Dempsey* and Rosemary RussellU.K. Office for Library and Information Networking, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, United Kingdom.E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

Robin MurrayFretwell Downing Informatics Ltd., Brincliffe House, 861 Ecclesall Rd., Sheffield S11 7AE, United Kingdom.E-mail: [email protected]

This article discusses the emergence of distributed li- intermittent automated communication. However, this isbrary services drawing on recent European initiatives to miss the real opportunity now posed by the developingto describe developments. It focuses on Z39.50-based technologies, which is to integrate functions in waysservices. It outlines a descriptive framework for such

which facilitate the automation of complete processesservices and briefly introduces developments in otherwhich map onto user behavior. At the same time, thedomains. Projects funded through the EU Telematics Ap-

plication Programme are highlighted and some recent reader is finding many other information resources on thedevelopments in U.K. higher education are introduced. network. These include services being developed within

other curatorial traditions—museums, archives, and geo-spatial data, for example—as well as search and directory1. Introductionservices for a wide range of more or less well-controlledresources.The current state of library automation is one in which

existing operations or functions have been automated in- Current approaches are not sustainable for several rea-sons. They are wasteful of users’ time and pose growingdividually: Circulation, ILL, access to reference re-

sources, and so on. Take, for example, the reader who management problems for libraries who need to move toroutine ways of managing collections of electronic re-wishes to find and request several items on a particular

topic. He or she may have to interact with several search sources. A piecemeal approach to electronic resourcesemphasizes local individual solutions and is in danger ofsystems to discover potentially interesting items, with a

catalog or other tools to locate them, with one or more de-emphasizing the real challenge: The need to move to acommon managed framework which allows the selection,human or automated services to request them, and so on.

There are multiple system boundaries across which data organization, and removal of distributed services withpredictable procedures and a high-enough level of ‘‘inter-does not flow. System integration is effected by human

effort, by transcription, merging and matching, walking connectedness’’ to reduce the overhead on users and li-brary staff of multiple specialized approaches.and talking.

Although applications may be ‘‘on the network,’’ they We believe that the future user service will be definedare only ‘‘networked’’ in very preliminary ways. They in terms of logical user services (e.g., reference services,still operate much as they did before they were put on current awareness, document requesting, regional librarythe network. Such applications have been conceived and resources, etc.) , which will be independent of the underly-developed as functional islands, between which there is ing physical implementation of those services (e.g., CDs,

web indexes, catalogs, etc) . A layer of software, or mid-dleware, which hides underlying difference and which

* To whom all correspondence should be addressed. allows the transparent addition of services and resourceswill provide the basis for this service. It will build onReceived September 17, 1997; accepted September 17, 1997.metadata (Dempsey & Heery, in press) (which describeswhat is available and how to interact with it) and proto-q 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE. 49(10) :942–951, 1998 CCC 0002-8231/98/100942-10

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as clients could receive and handle digital documents.However, initial developments were proprietary.

2.2. Evolution Phase 2: Proprietary to Open Client-Server

The move to an open client-server framework intro-duces support for distribution. A single user interface can

FIG. 1. Towards client-server. access multiple databases, and a database can be accessedby multiple clients. This ability is supported by a standardprotocols within particular application areas. In the library

cols (which allow services to interconnect and data to community, Z39.50 has been used for information re-flow between them). In this way, it will be possible to trieval applications; the ILL protocol is beginning to bebegin planning services around user need rather than the used for document requesting.constraints of location, media, or the mechanics of inter-action. It will provide the basis on which the library will

2.3. Evolution Phase 3: Emergence of Distributedshape and organize its service, rather than presenting itApplicationsas a series of unconnected opportunities.

A example of the direction in which we suggest ser- In this phase, a layer of software hides the physicalvices will move is provided by the U.K. initiative to de- distribution of servers providing particular applications.velop ‘‘clumps’’ (Dempsey & Russell, 1997), described This provides infrastructure for managed access to distrib-more fully below. These are effectively federations of uted resources. It is, for example, a likely architecturecatalogs in which underlying difference and physical dis- for clumps, introduced earlier. A ‘‘broker’’ or ‘‘tradingtribution is hidden from the user. Although this type of place’’ is a metaphor for the rendezvous point of serviceapplication may at first seem relatively straightforward, requests and service providers. In the ‘‘clumping’’ exam-issues arise in implementation. How to route queries to ple, the service providers are library systems and otherpotentially useful catalogs? How to describe catalogs and database providers.collections? How to integrate holdings information, link If we look at a complex service, and imagine a ‘‘rich’’to circulation, to document requesting, and so on? clump or other distributed service, we can identify a range

Work on distributed applications in the library world of desirable features.began in the early 1980s in the U.S. and in Europe (Dem-psey, 1992). Their development has been slow for a vari-

j Service Topology Supportety of reasons. However, we are now beginning to see a This has been called creating the ‘‘information land-range of interesting technical developments which are scape,’’ the view of resources a user has available. Itputting in place the type of service we suggest is required. abstracts the underlying mechanics of access and physi-

cal distribution of resources.This article provides a framework for thinking about suchj Service Routingservices and introduces some European initiatives which

Queries and requests may need to be passed betweenare helping achieve them. The main focus is on Z39.50-several services. For example, if a search is not success-based applications in the library domain, although we doful in the local catalog, it may be passed to a regionaltouch on the use of other protocols and on developmentsresource; if a document request cannot be satisfied by awithin other domains.particular library, it may be passed to another supplier.

j Obtaining ‘‘Forward Knowledge’’How do we know what service is likely to satisfy a2. The Evolution of Distributed Systems1

particular requirement? Some forward knowledge of aIn this section, a simple framework for understanding service’s capabilities would be useful, which narrows

the development of networked information applications the field of potentially relevant services in helpful ways.For example, a ‘‘centroid’’ is a representation of data-is presented.

2.1. Evolution Phase 1: Host-Based to Client-Server

First applications were monolithic and host-based. Cli-ent-server applications were developed to exploit thepower of desk-top machines to provide graphic user inter-faces and some local processing. This separation alsoallowed the development of mixed media capabilities,

1 This approach was developed by Robin Murray following discus-sion within the MODELS program. FIG. 2. Towards open client-server.

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FIG. 3. Towards distributed applications.

base content based on a type of inverted index. A search cating between objects; CORBA and ActiveX havecan be carried out on the centroid before connecting to emerged as the principal contenders for such a role.the service itself. Other forms of ‘‘collection descrip- Approaches based on distributed objects are not yettion’’ might also be available. common in the library world, but some examples are

j Schema Knowledge and Mapping sketched below.Different databases may support different structures,

There is a common perception that applications willwhether in terms of attributes that can be searched orincreasingly be developed in this way, though the speedrecords that are returned. Some mapping may be re-with which things happen is unclear. It opens up a numberquired.of interesting possibilities. For example, a service pro-j Dynamic Interface Configurationvider might sell access to programs which manipulateThe user interface should be helpful in terms of the

particular characteristics of a resource searched or data data alongside the data itself. The emergence of Java andreturned. discussion of the Network Computer are aspects of this

j Application Services broader development.The broker would provide search and retrieve, docu-

ment request and delivery services.

3. A Selective Overview of European LibraryApplications which incorporate this range of services Initiatives

are not now in routine production use: They are in therealm of research and development. Most of the projects In this section, we describe some projects and services

which are deploying distributed technologies in librarydescribed below ‘‘broker’’ services in this way, with vari-ous levels of functional richness. services in Europe. Some national U.K. and German ini-

tiatives are described, but much of the work is supportedunder the various programs of the European Union. Some

2.4. Evolution Phase 4: Emergence of Fullyof this section draws on and updates parts of an overview

Distributed Object-Based Servicesof Z39.50 developments in the European library commu-nity (Dempsey, Russell, & Kirriemuir, 1996).In this stage, applications are based on distributed inde-

pendent software components specialized for particular From its inception in the late 1980s (Dempsey, 1995;Iljon, 1995) the EU libraries programme has seen theservices. These are assembled as required. Some services,

authentication and tariffing, may be shared by many appli- emergence of distributed systems as central. In its earlierstages, in the Third Framework Programme, it supportedcations. This framework assumes a means of communi-

FIG. 4. Towards object-based services.

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the development of particular tools and building blocks; (JukeBox, n.d.) and SOCKER. It was also coordinatedby UNI-C in Denmark, who were the technical developersin latter stages, moving into the Fourth Framework Pro-

gramme, it has emphasized the construction of operational responsible for software development. The aim was tolook at issues related to the implementation of SR/Z39.50services from these components. (The EU organizes its

research and technical development work in ‘‘framework targets for sound archives. Other partners were the DanishState and Research Library in Aarhus and the U.K. andprogrammes’’ which overlap and last for 4 to 5 years.

Colloquially, the ‘‘EU libraries programme’’ is used to Italian National Sound Archives; the project developedaccess to the catalogs belonging to these three institutions.refer to the library component of both Programmes.) The

rationale for the former projects was the lack of generally A Web to Z39.50 gateway was developed to provide asingle point of access.available tools. Although this emphasis was a useful one,

the libraries programme was unfortunate in that it coin-cided with, and necessarily supported, the OSI enterprise. 3.1.3. Eurilia. EURILIA ran from early 1994 to

early 1997 and was coordinated by the University of Lim-Several projects from earlier stages expended much effortin work that was superseded by the general migration erick in Ireland (O’Flaherty, 1995). Other partners were

Cranfield University in the U.K.; the Technical Universityaway from OSI protocols to Internet-based solutions. Itis interesting, though not very fruitful, to speculate on of Delft and Digital Equipment Corporation in the Nether-

lands; Sup’Aero, ENSEA in France; and Instituto Nacio-what the actual impact of this great diverted effort actuallywas. Some projects, Europagate for example, deliberately nal de Tecnica Aerospacial in Spain. Four of the library

partners all have major aerospace collections. The centralchanged emphasis in mid-course in response to changesin the communications environment. aim of the project was to develop a standard interface to

the OPACs of aerospace library collections. This wasWe do not try to be comprehensive, but to describe arepresentative selection of projects. For example, we do demonstrated and evaluated between participating librar-

ies, and partners agreed to investigate further uses withinnot discuss the work of Pica in the Netherlands and Ger-many (Pica, n.d.) . Pica has pioneered the use of opera- the aerospace information community after the comple-

tion of the project.tional Z39.50 services and is collaborating in DBV-OSIII and Project ONE. It provides central ‘‘brokering’’ ser-vices for its libraries through the Open Library Network 3.1.4. ARCA (Access to Remote CAtalogs) . ARCA

began in January 1995 and continued until July 1997.and other services (Ossterup, 1996).ARCA involved partners from Italy and Spain (ARCA,n.d.) . The coordinator was Intecs Sistemi; other Italian

3.1. The Development of Clients and Servers—Someparticipants were the National Research Council, the Cen-

Initiativestre for Library Automation at the University of Pisa, andthe Region of Tuscany Library Service. Spanish partici-3.1.1. Introduction. Several initiatives have sup-

ported the move to client-server operations through the pants were SABINI, the library systems vendor, the Fun-dacion Sancho el Sabio, the foundation responsible fordevelopment of client and/or server software. SOCKER,

ARCA, CaseLibrary, and Eurilia have led to the produc- the preservation of Basque cultural documentation.ARCA’s primary objective was the development of ation of client software; ARCA, DBV/OSI II, and SR-

Target/Paragon server software. Of interest, also, is the software tool which would allow existing OPACs to actas Z39.50 targets, with minimum effort. The tool has beenwork of Index Data, who have produced the Yaz toolkit

and whose work has been supported by several EU proj- implemented for two library systems: CDS/ISIS in Italyand SABINI in Spain. These are two of the most widelyects. Almost all of the work described in this section has

been funded by the EU. used packages in their respective countries. Althoughoriginally specified only for ISO SR, the ARCA targetkernel was ultimately developed for Z39.50 Version 3,3.1.2. Socker and SR-Target/PARAGON. SOCKER

(SR Origin Communication Kernel) lasted from Decem- implementing the core services (e.g., Present, Search),and then Explain. The secondary objective was to developber 1992 to early 1996 (Socker, n.d.) . It was coordinated

by UNI-C, the Danish Computing Centre for Research a Z39.50 client application using existing Z39.50 originsoftware and taking advantage of the modern GUI tech-and Education, which is involved in several EU library

projects, and partners were the Danish Library Centre, an nology offered by the Tcl/Tk toolkit. Importantly, theproject is also addressing the issue of multilingual accessinnovative organization which is also involved in other

projects, and IME, the library system vendor. The central ( the ARCA consortium includes interests in four lan-guages) . Since completion of the project, the partners arepart of the project, successfully completed, was to pro-

duce an SR client toolkit. This enables developers either looking at joint commercialization of the results.to define new client applications or to integrate the codeinto existing ones. Each partner used the code in a specific 3.1.5. Europagate, Yaz, and Zebra. EUROPAGATE,

also funded under the European Libraries Programme,application.SR-Target/PARAGON was completed during 1996, ran between 1994 and 1996 (Europagate, n.d.) . The part-

ners were University College Dublin, an Chomhairlebuilding on the work of the earlier projects JUKE-BOX


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Leabharlanna (Irish Library Council, Ireland), the Danish 3.2. The Emergence of Distributed LibraryApplications—Some InitiativesTechnical Knowledge Centre and Library, and the Con-

sejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Spain. The3.2.1. Introduction. Although applications of thistechnical aims of EUROPAGATE can be summarized

type are not now common, we suggest that the ‘‘three-under the following headings:tier’’ approach will become routine and that the initiativespresented here will increasingly become the pattern for

(1) To provide a gateway between SR and Z39.50; library service provision, enhanced with object-based ser-(2) to provide a gateway between SR/OSI and Z39.50/ vices. The middleware broker will provide the basis for

TCP/IP; effective ‘‘collection development,’’ allowing the reflec-(3) to provide other gateway functions, including pro-

tion of a consistent, integrated resource to the user.viding access to servers through E-mail, providing

Such brokers will be provided at various levels—ei-access to multiple servers, and providing access tother local, or within some other organizational or nationalthe gateway through a Web front-end.context—and in various configurations.

During the course of the project, changes in the com-3.2.2. ONE (OPAC Network in Europe). ONE is amunications environment suggest a shift of emphasis

significant European Z39.50 project funded by the EUdown this list. The need for (1) has receded since the(ONE, n.d.) . It started at the beginning of 1995, scheduledproposal was accepted, as the protocols converge; (2)to run for 30 months. It involves 15 participants fromno longer seems an issue, as in the current operationaleight countries. It is large because two project proposalsenvironment, there is little need for such a gateway. Underwere merged to form one eventual project. A precursor(3) , the gateway provides support for conversion betweenproject was Nordic SR-Net, which was important as onedifferent MARC formats, some administrative and man-of the very few functioning SR implementations (workagement support, and the ability to submit queries andcarried out in project ION also produced an SR server) .receive results from the gateway via E-mail. The projectONE’s coordinator is BRODD, the R&D and consultancyalso provides an http to Z39.50 gateway; http is a stateless,department of the Norwegian School of Library and Infor-or connectionless, protocol: It preserves no informationmation Science. Partners and associates in ONE are farbetween accesses. Z39.50 is a stateful, or connection-more wide ranging than the earlier project: The Britishoriented, protocol: It retains information over a user ses-Library, Crossnet Systems (U.K.); Danish Library Cen-sion. While building the E-mail gateway, the developerstre, National Museum (Denmark); Die Deutsche Biblio-have added an extra software layer that preserves thisthek (Germany); Pica (The Netherlands); Joanneum Re-information transparent to the client. This also facilitatedsearch, Die Steiermarkische Landesbibliothek, Steiermar-the construction of the http to Z39.50 gateway in the latterkische Landesmuseum Joanneum (Austria) ; LIBRISstages of the project, allowing it to be more functional(Sweden); the National Library, BIBSYS, University Li-than some of the other such gateways currently available.brary of Oslo (Norway); Helsinki University Library—Europagate must be considered one of the successesTKAY (Finland). It is therefore significant, not leastof the European Libraries Programme. The software pro-in its encompassment of a number of major Europeanduced has been made available and is used elsewhere,institutions.particularly to provide a web to Z39.50 gateway. It pro-

The project is developing services using Z39.50 tovides simple brokerage services.provide both end-users and library staff with improvedIndex Data, a Danish company, who worked on theaccess to the participating national library OPACs. TheEUROPAGATE, SOCKER, ARCA, and other EU proj-accompanying aim is that this will ‘‘stimulate and facili-ects provide several other useful tools, available as free-tate interworking between libraries in Europe.’’ A ‘‘Neu-ware and accessible from their website (Index Data, n.d.) .tral Entry Point’’—or broker—will be offered; this is aThe Zebra Information Server is a free-text indexing andserver which provides access to users without a Z39.50retrieval system, combined with a Z39.50 server. IrTclclient and acts as a gateway. The project is also producingextends the Tcl/Tk development environment to supporta set of portable software tools; it includes an API forthe construction of graphical clients to Z39.50. YAZ (Yetcommunication functions and a toolbox for additionalAnother Z39.50 Toolkit) is a toolkit for implementingfunctions, such as conversion between different MARCthe Z39.50v3 protocol. Origin and target are supported.formats and character set conversion (the latter using theThese tools are widely used and Index Data supportscode developed by the CHASE project; COBRA, n.d.) .wide-ranging Z39.50 development activity through col-Another interesting part of the project is the implementa-laborations and project participation.tion of Explain services; this has not been widely testedelsewhere, because there are still relatively few Explainimplementations.3.1.6. CaseLibrary (Znavigator), DBV/OSI II. These

projects have both led to the development of software ONE uses the Z39.50 software which was developedby Crossnet Systems for the German DBV-OSI II project;which is available for wider use. They are described fur-

ther below. the project thus centers on Z39.50 version 3. Crossnet is


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also producing a stand-alone Z39.50 PC client for ONE. verse will use this ‘‘logical union catalog’’ to deliver anumber of advanced library services for both the end-Most participants had already started to develop services

based on Z39.50 or SR before the project started. There- user and the librarian:fore, existing systems have been used to test interworkingand as a basis for further development. Drawing up Imple- j Search and retrieve—very large scale, transparent

multi-database searching;mentors’ Agreements has been a fundamental element ofj multimedia document delivery—integrated with thethe project. The British Library, like some of the other

search and retrieve process;players, plans to use products resulting from ONE as partj inter-library loan—integrated with the search and re-of their long-term Z39.50 service implementation. The

trieve process;British Library target currently has two databases avail-j collaborative cataloguing/record supply.able: SRIS (Science Reference and Information Service)

and Document Supply Centre Monographs.The key features of the UNIverse architecture for theThe intention is that ONE will ‘‘establish a service

logical union catalog include:infrastructure for searching in Europe which can be ex-tended to include resources worldwide through the In-

j The ability to search in parallel, multiple-physical-het-ternet, and can be further expanded to allow ordering oferogeneous databases, presenting results as if a singlepublications found through searching.’’ Several of thelogical database were being searched;

partners with integrated clients are, in fact, implementingj the multiplicity of data sources is hidden from the user

item order during the project’s trial phase, although this and a high quality of service is achieved both in termswas not a deliverable. The trial phase is taking place of performance and data quality through record de-during summer 1997. Each partner has invited a limited duplication and merging;group of end-users to participate, each of whom will com- j through the use of Open Distributed Processing (ODP)plete an evaluation questionnaire. techniques, the architecture is scalable. UNIverse

should be capable of transparent, simultaneous search-A proposal for ONE phase 2 has been submitted toing of massive sets of physical databases, while main-the latest call of the EU Libraries Programme under thetaining high performance.Fourth Framework Programme; the result is not known at

the time of writing. The bid includes most of the existingThrough the project, large-scale logical union catalogsparticipants, although not the British Library. The contin-

will be developed in two subject areas, focusing on techni-ued work proposed includes the downloading of catalogcal and environmental catalogs. The logical catalogs arerecords and related contractual issues, and document re-to be developed by coordinating groups of relevant librar-questing.ies through subject-based ‘‘user groups.’’ The usergroups, chaired by a coordinating library from the project,3.2.3. Danish Library Centre. The Danish Librarywill stimulate cross-border cooperation and resource shar-Centre is a company which provides automation, biblio-ing between libraries. The national libraries in UNIversegraphic, and other services to the Danish library commu-have the role of providing rich, high volume data sets.nity (DBC, n.d.) . (There are organizations in the Nether-They will consolidate the activity within the subject areas,lands and other Nordic countries which have similarand broaden the scope of the demonstrators across furtherorigins in a range of services to the public library commu-subject areas, geographical areas, and library types.nity; they have diversified in recent years.) It was involved

UNIverse builds on the earlier work of IRIS (Kelly &in the SOCKER project and is a partner in ONE. It pro-Alton, 1995) and of DALI (DALI, n.d.) and involvesvides Danbib, an integrated framework for bibliographicseveral of the same partners. IRIS is an interesting initia-and library services and other services, again, effectively,tive, as it was one of the first operational Z39.50 services.a broker in the terms suggested here, providing parallelIt was funded under the Telematique programme and pro-search and retrieve, requesting, and format conversionvides the basis for a commercial search and documentand other services (DANBIB, n.d.) . An object-orientedsupply service aimed at various users in the Republic ofinterface will support various clients including Z39.50v3Ireland. It allows users to search for and request itemsOrigin systems and Distributed OLE Clients such as Nets-from the catalogs of several Irish University and othercape and other standard Windows applications.libraries.

3.2.4. IRIS—DALI—UNIverse. UNIverse is a FourthFramework project in the European Libraries Programme, 3.2.5. CaseLibrary. CaseLibrary started in January

1995 and was completed in April 1997. It was coordinatedwhich began in October 1996. The project is coordinatedby Fretwell-Downing, Ltd. in the U.K. There are 16 part- by EnWare S.A. in Madrid; other partners were LITC,

South Bank University, London; University of Alcala deners and associates in total, including the British Library,the Greek National Library, the Irish Library Council, Henares, Madrid; and CeSIT at the University of Florence

(Yeates, 1997).and the Danish Technical Knowledge Centre.UNIverse aims to present a heterogeneous range of The CaseLibrary project was initially developed to ad-

dress the need for graphical user interfaces to legacy li-information resources as a single logical database. UNI-


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brary systems, and to examine the potential for mid- Z39.50 client and server protocol functions, communica-tion facilities, and other utilities. A specific technical ap-dleware to allow library users to access a range of diverse

servers. Developments in client-server computing since proach was chosen to ensure maximum portability andreusability of the software developed for the project. Thethe project began changed its focus from provision of

access to electronic library resources, to the provision of success of this approach is demonstrated by the softwarebeing used by the ONE project (see below). The softwareaccess and control systems for managing network re-

sources. The CaseLibrary Access Control Token Server is publicly available as FreeWare. The project has notdeveloped a stand-alone Z39.50 client; partners use their(CACTUS) therefore replaces the earlier planned server

middleware. existing library system clients.After interoperability testing among the eight partici-The part of the project which has perhaps received

most attention is the development of the ZNavigator cli- pants, a group of selected libraries and information centerstook part in a pilot phase during 1996. In January 1997,ent. It is a Z39.50 version 3 client, partly based on Index

Data’s YAZ toolkit. Features supported include multiple the DBV-OSI network became fully operational. One ofthe latest developments is the provision of a Web totarget sessions and saving of queries and result sets. It

also supports several record syntaxes including GRS-1, Z39.50 gateway, which allows searching of individualservices, or user selection of several to search simultane-SUTRS, USMARC, UKMARC, and UNIMARC. ZNavi-

gator can be configured to cooperate with CACTUS net- ously (DDB, n.d.) .The project started its second phase in mid-1996, andwork control servers to facilitate and/or control user ac-

cess to a given set of Z39.50 targets. The Znavigator has developed a so-called DOD system (Document Or-der-Receive and Delivery) . The system is able to receivestand-alone version is available for free download as 90-

day beta software (CaseLib, n.d.) . The software develop- both Z39.50 item order and E-mail requests. The latterare ASCII files, the content of which is based on the ISOers are currently preparing a version which is expected

to be on sale in late 1997/1998. ILL protocol’s ILL-Request definition. (The project willnot be implementing ISO ILL itself.) Scanned documentscan be sent via E-mail, fax, ftp, and post. The system is3.2.6. DBV-OSI II and Other German National Initia-

tives. DBV-OSI II is a German national project, with currently in test phase; 12 libraries have the system in-stalled. It is intended that DOD will also be used by thefederal government funding (DBV, n.d.) . There are eight

partners. The coordinator is Die Deutsche Bibliothek, document supply libraries participating in the SUBITOinitiative. This is a project aiming to integrate existingwith Danet GmbH providing technical project manage-

ment. Other partners are the online hosts Fachinforma- systems for document delivery in Germany, in order toincrease the speed and efficiency of inter-library loan.tionszentrum (FIZ) Karlsruhe (STN Germany) and DIMDI,

and the regional union catalog organizations DeutschesBibliotheksinstitut (DBI), Bibliotheksverbund Bayern 3.2.7. Some U.K. National Initiatives

3.2.7.1. ‘‘Clumps’’ and hybrid libraries. These(BVB), Gottinger Bibliotheksverbund (GBV), and Sud-westdeutscher Bibliotheksverbund (SWB). The final par- unusual terms have been coined to describe two signifi-

cant and related U.K. higher education initiatives whichticipant is Pica, which is participating in its role as anational Dutch service and as a system supplier—several are encouraging the cohesive development of distributed

library and information services. This is being achievedof the union catalogs involved are automated using thePica library management system. The project started in through the funding of a small group of demonstrator

projects which will explore the management, coordina-1993, thus explaining the inclusion of OSI in its name.The aim of the project was to provide an integrated tion, and development issues involved in providing con-

sistent access to a range of networked and local resources.infrastructure for document discovery, provision of hold-ings information, requesting and delivery of materials, as At the time of writing, proposals for these projects are

being evaluated.well as downloading of external bibliographic records.The Z39.50 protocol forms the basis of the service, The concept of ‘‘clumps’’ emerged from the third

MODELS Workshop, held in July 1996 (Dempsey &allowing users unified access to heterogeneous resourcesusing familiar local interfaces. The project is important Russell, 1997). MODELS is a UKOLN project, supported

by eLib and the British Library, whose aim is to developas one of the few concerted efforts tackling the problemof linking the three areas of distributed searching, access strategies and technical infrastructures to support the

move towards distributed environments. The theme of thisto holdings information, and document requesting.The DBV-OSI partner systems are using a common particular workshop was ‘‘National resource discovery:

Organizing access to printed scholarly material.’’ ThereAPI that has been provided within the project to reducedevelopment effort. This software was developed by were a number of key outcomes, which are influencing

the development of resource discovery services in theCrossnet Systems in the U.K. It provides a subset ofZ39.50 version 3 services. The API supports TCP/IP; U.K. As described earlier, clumps are understood to be

groups of metadata resources which can be searched to-ISODE (ISO Development Environment) is also sup-ported, but in practice this is no longer used. It is a UNIX- gether to facilitate discovery. The resources could in the-

ory be metadata for any type of media, although thisbased software package with a comprehensive set of


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workshop specifically addressed library catalogs. They ine solutions in three sectors: Music, publishing, and tech-nical data. However, it builds on work done in several ofmay either be physical clumps, where records from sev-

eral catalogs are physically collected to form union cata- the projects described above and includes Fretwell Down-ing, Index Data, and the Danish Technical Knowledgelogs, or virtual clumps which use Z39.50 to form distrib-

uted union catalogs. The latter type is of most interest to Centre among its partners. It is anticipated that the resultswill be broadly applicable and may be applied in librarythis initiative, given that, at this stage of development, it

is unlikely that further physical union catalogs will be domains. Finally, we note the use of distributed objecttechnologies in several of the Digital Library Initiativecreated. Clumps may also either be static, where a group

of libraries agree to cooperate (based perhaps on existing projects in the U.S., notably in the Stanford Digital Li-brary project) (Paepcke, 1996). This introduces the ‘‘in-service agreements) , or dynamic, where a clump is cre-

ated ‘‘on the fly’’ at the point of searching. This type fobus’’ metaphor ‘‘to suggest that services, repositories,and clients are ‘plugged in,’ and interoperate by takingof service will benefit from the provision of collection

descriptions to assist in the selection of resources: How advantage of interoperability mechanisms built into thetestbed.’’ The architecture is implemented within ato provide these in an integrated way is still an open

research and development issue. CORBA distributed object environment.The JISC Committee on Electronic Information (CEI)

Development Programme call for proposals (eLib phase4. A Wider Picture

3), issued in March 1997, included a ‘‘large scale re-source discovery’’ strand. It is planned to fund a small

4.1. The Emergence of a Cross-Domain Agendanumber of pilot virtual clumps via this Call (JISC, 1997).A clumps technology overview document and a draft Current information systems tend to be limited by do-

main: Where domain may be loosely defined by someMODELS Z39.50 profile have been drawn up to supportclump interoperability. These and other information about combination of discipline, format, and curatorial tradition.

For example, library catalogs largely provide access toclumps are available from the Clumps web page (Clumps,n.d.) . Once the successful clumps are known, it is planned books in libraries. Systems are under development to pro-

vide access to Internet resources, to museum objects, tothat a working group will be set up to take forward techni-cal framework issues and further develop the Z39.50 pro- image databases, to geospatial reference data, to statistical

and scientific data sets, and so on. In each of these do-file according to emerging needs.The other program area in eLib phase 3 is ‘‘hybrid mains there are concerted initiatives looking at descriptive

standards, search and retrieve protocols and architectures,libraries.’’ This recognizes the problems that libraries arenow facing in managing a huge range of emerging elec- and content encoding standards. There are many points

of contact between initiatives, especially where servicetronic services and products, in addition to their existingcollections of traditional resources. CEI also acknowl- interests or technical approaches converge. For example,

there has been considerable cross-domain interest in theedges that there are few, if any, exemplars of good prac-tice for libraries to follow. The aim of the CEI initiative Z39.50 profile for access to digital collections.

However, as we suggested in our introduction, users’is therefore to fund a small number of pilot hybrid libraryprojects, which will develop methods for integrating tradi- needs are not bounded by domain. A cultural historian

may be interested in the image of the city in modernisttional and new library resources as seamlessly as possible.Clearly Z39.50 is a key enabling technology also for this literature. A preliminary investigation might wish to con-

sider the Dublin of Joyce, the Prague of Ka f ka, and theprogram area.It is likely that some clumps and hybrid libraries proj- discussions of Paris by Walter Benjamin. He or she would

like to look for books and serial articles, for demographicects will develop around the distributed application modeloutlined in this review. and other social data sets, for images. A child doing a

school project on butterflies and natural selection providesa second example. He or she may wish to discover the

3.3. The Emergence of Distributed Object-Basedexistence of some museum objects, some textbook or

Servicesencyclopedia discussions, and some images. One mightexpect much of the material for these exercises to beIt is widely accepted that distributed object technolo-

gies will become more influential in the construction of available on the network, in whatever organizational orbusiness framework. In fact, some organizations may spe-information systems. Discussion of this trend is beyond

the scope of this article. We briefly mentioned the work cialize in bringing it together, or assist in this process:The packaging of materials for exhibitions or this typeof the Danish Library Centre above. Of interest here also

is the GAIA project (Generic Architecture for Informa- of application is likely to become important for museums,libraries, and so on. However, if current patterns of accesstion Availability) (GAIA, n.d.) . GAIA aims to ‘‘facilitate

location and delivery of information content and digital are continued, effective use of this variety of resourceswould be time-consuming and tedious.services through a scalable brokerage model broadly ap-

plicable to distributed information supply chains and net- Users would thus be well served by some frameworkwhich allows domain cross-searching, and retrieval andworks.’’ This is not a library-based project. It will exam-


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collation of relevant materials. At the same time, several version 3 has positioned it more clearly as a generic searchand retrieve protocol, making it seem less like a special-institutions contain within their own collections several

domains. For example, a large museum or research library ized library tool. The ‘‘Z39.50 Profile for access to digitalcollections’’ has also generated some interest (LOC,is likely to contain some selection of the following:

Books, serials, archives, museum objects, image collec- 1996), and ‘‘companion’’ profiles have been developedin other domains. The more recent discussion surroundingtions, maps, and other geospatial data. They might also

wish to provide access to external resources on the net- the Dublin Core metadata element set has also been ex-plicitly cross-domain: A major target use is semantic in-work. Even within an institution, each domain may have

different technical and professional practices associated teroperability across other metadata models. We havenoted some U.K.-based cross-domain initiatives and havewith it. There are good management and organizational

reasons for continuing this specialization, but these insti- argued that this convergence is a natural development, asusers are interested in the intellectual record, whatevertutions are faced with the challenge of providing unified

access to their collections while respecting a variety of professional sector looks after it.In this context, it is interesting to note some parallelinternal professional practices. For example, a user re-

searching a certain specimen will want to discover rele- developments in other domains. One is the developmentof the Catalogue Interoperability Protocol, a profile ofvant exhibits as well as documents. In summary, libraries

and related organizations want to facilitate useful access Z39.50 developed for use to provide consistent access toEarth Observation data. This has been developed by theto and use of the intellectual record, irrespective of what

domain it is in, and this issue is likely to be addressed in Committee on Earth Observation Satellites, which hasalso developed designs for an ‘‘Interoperable Cataloguehybrid library projects.

These issues were discussed at the fourth MODELS System’’ intended to federate autonomous catalog sys-tems. Again, it is built around a three-tier model: A clientworkshop in December 1996 (Russell, 1997). This ex-

tended the idea of clumps to address searching across tier, a middleware tier, and a data provider tier. ‘‘Mid-dleware applications are entities that are used to modeldomains such as libraries, archives, museums, and so on.

Following this, the JISC Call specifically requested ex- ‘business’ processes. . . . ICS middleware models thedata and processes necessary for providing client transpar-pressions of interest in establishing cross-domain clumps,

although it may be that it is yet too early to do much ent access to heterogeneous catalogs at physically distrib-uted locations’’ (CEOS, 1997).development work in this area. However, influenced by

the same discussions, some other initiatives are of interest. Of special interest also is work in the field of culturalheritage and image-based resources, where CIMI (theThe Arts and Humanities Data Service, a U.K. JISC-

funded service provider, has released an invitation to Consortium for Interchange of Museum Information)have developed a companion digital collections profile.tender for ‘‘the supply and support of a suite of networked

information discovery and retrieval, and user registration, System Simulation is a U.K.-based company which hasdeveloped a range of systems solutions in museum andauthentication, and resource ordering systems’’ (Green-

stein, 1997). The AHDS works through five subject- image projects such as Aquarelle and Elise (Aquarelle,n.d.; Elise, n.d.) , deploying Z39.50 solutions in variousbased service providers who offer ‘‘archival and other

functions to scholars in archaeology, history, the per- configurations.forming arts, textual studies, and the visual arts,’’ each ofwhich operates within a resource description frameworkappropriate to their domain. The services need to operate 5. Conclusion—Save the Time of the Userwithin a common framework and this system is to provideunified access to their services using a Z39.50-based gate- Current approaches to the supply of electronic re-

sources are often experimental or specialized. Librariesway. The subject service providers will have differentZ39.50 targets, which in turn need to interface to SQL- are still working towards routine procedures for network

resource development and management; this is inevitableand SGML-based systems among others. At the sametime, the JISC has commissioned a Z39.50-based demon- in an uncertain and immature environment. We need to

work towards a common framework for information man-strator to show cross-searching of archival metadatastores. Together, the initiatives described here, and in the agement, and the initiatives described in this article sug-

gests some preferred future directions. Without such alast section, will provide interesting experiences in theconstruction of distributed applications and the potential common framework, best use will not be made of existing

information resources, and best use will not be made offor cross-domain activity.the effort of users and staff. An open approach to ‘‘inter-connectedness’’ will provide the basis for new library

4.2. Some Developments in Other Domainsservices which facilitate flows of data, which reflect aconsistent view of an organized service, and which shiftA central theme of this article has been that we are

beginning to see a convergence of approaches around the emphasis away from technical problems to issues ofcollection development, user needs, and deep resourcestandards-based intermediate services across curatorial

traditions and sectors. In particular, the advent of Z39.50 sharing.


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Dempsey, L., & Heery, R. ( in press) . Metadata: A current review ofAcknowledgmentspractice and issues. Journal of Documentation.

UKOLN is based at the University of Bath and is Dempsey, L., & Russell, R. (1997). Clumps—or organised access toprinted scholarly material. Program, 31(3) , 239–249.supported by the Joint Information Systems Committee

Dempsey, L., Russell, R., & Kirriemuir, J. (1996). Distributed libraryof the Higher Education Funding Councils of the U.K.,systems: Z39.50 in Europe. Program, 30(1) , 1–22.

and by the British Library Research and Innovation Cen- Elise. Details about ELISE I and ELISE II are at: »URL:http://severn.tre, as well as by project funding from the EU. This dmu.ac.uk/elise/…work relies on the findings of the MODELS (Moving to Europagate. The Europagate website is at: »URL:http: / /europagate.

dtv.dk/ … . This helpful site contains reports, overviews, and software.Distributed Environments for Library Services) project.GAIA. Further information about GAIA is available at: »URL:http://Rosemary Russell is the Project Manager and Robin Mur-

www.dtv.dk/GAIA/…ray the Technical Consultant. We are grateful to Pat Man- Greenstein, D. (1997, August 1) . AHDS Systems Operational Require-son (European Commission—DGXII/E-4) and to Makx ment (Public version 1.1) . Available: »URL:http://www.kcl.ac.uk/Dekkers (Coopers and Lybrand) for comments on this projects/ahds/pol/ahds-or.htm…

Iljon, A. (1995). The European Libraries Programme: An overview.article. Views expressed in this article are those of theProgram, 29(4) , 361–377.authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of any

Index Data. Available: »URL:http://http://www.indexdata.dk/…of the funding bodies. JISC. (1997). JISC circular 3/97. Available: »URL:http: / /www.niss.

ac.uk/education/jisc/pub97/c3_97.html… (JISC is the Joint Informa-tion Systems Committee of the Higher Education Funding CouncilsReferencesin the U.K.)

JukeBox. Available: »URL:http://www.sb.aau.dk/service/jukemenu.html…Aquarelle. Available: »URL:http: / /aqua.inria.fr / …Kelly, A., & Alton, B. (1995). IRIS: A Z39.50 based service for data-ARCA. Available: »URL:http://www.pisa.intecs.it/projects/ARCA/…

base searching and document ordering. Journal of Information Net-CaseLib. Available: »URL:http://www.sbu.ac.uk/litc/caselib/…working, 2(3) , 187–213.CEOS. Working Group on Information Systems and Services. Protocol

LOC (1996, May). Z 39.50 profile for access to digital collectionsTask Team. (1997, March). Interoperable Catalog System (ICS)(Draft 7, Library of Congress) . Available: »URL:http: / / lcweb.loc.system design document. (Version 1.2) . This and other documents asgov/z3950/agency/profiles/collections.html…well as further information about CIP is available from: »URL:http: / /

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ONE. Available: »URL:http: / /www.bibsys.no/one.html …Clumps. Available: »URL:http: / /ukoln.ac.uk/models/clumps.html …Ossterup, D. (1996). PICA and the academic libraries in the Nether-COBRA. Information about CHASE is on the COBRA website: »URL:

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testbed design and status. D-Lib Magazine. Available: »URL:http://html …hosted.ukoln.ac.uk/mirrored/lis-journals/dlib/dlib/dlib/july96/stanford/DANBIB. The DANBIB system is described at: »URL:http://www.07paepcke.html…dbc.dk/english/system.html…

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The emergence of distributed library services: A European perspective

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