ISO ILL is one of a set of ‘Library’ communication protocols, along with its cousin Z39.50, that have always had their place in software houses and ILS/LMS vendors in the initiation of new programmers in to our world.

Take an eager young programmer in their first few weeks, and then get them to work on Z39.50 or ISO ILL.  If they still have the will to live after a week, they’ll go far in the Library software world!

Well that’s how it used to be.  Fortunately things have moved on a bit.  Everyone has already implemented their protocol handling software in what are now mature applications; and at least on the discovery front far more programmer, and come to that user, friendly protocols than Z39.50, like SRU and OpenSearch are becoming more widespread.

Probably because ILL is a comparatively obscure discipline within our world, ILL protocols have remained firmly rooted in the old way of doing things.  ILL applications have formed in to two groups.  Those that do ISO ILL and those that don’t.  Proponents of the former say that ILL can only function efficiently if everyone uses the standard.  Supporters of the latter, say that ISO ILL is far too complicated and imposes over complex workflows on to them, when simple email processes would suffice.

We at Talis had direct experience of this, when we launched our innovative UK interlending service Talis Source, last year.  This service, in which it is free to contribute and discover, uses a well established email based system to underpin its low-cost (£500 per institution) interlending functionality.  Since its launch Talis Source has been successfully competing with the then new, although traditionally priced, offering from OCLC - UnityUK.  OCLC’s service makes great play on using ISO ILL in its core.  In discussions with libraries who have had experience with both offerings it is clear that the benefits of standardization are often outweighed by the imposition of unnecessarily complex workflows.  I see that UnityUK has recently announced that they are simplifying their ILL workflow, which is quite possibly a reflection of this. The dissatisfaction with ISO ILL is also reflected in the National Library of Medicine’s announcement back in January that:

Support for the ISO ILL Protocol was discontinued due to the considerable staff and IT resources it required combined with a low demand from DOCLINE libraries for the ISO ILL connectivity.

And again, as reported on the NCIP group mailing list, The Library Corporation have formally submitted to NISO that they vote against reaffirming the ISO 10160-1 Interlibrary Loan Protocol Specification.

TLC believes that a new set of ILL protocol messages should be developed in the most nimble manner possible.

Sounds like a great way forward, although I’m not totally bought in to their recommendation that the new protocol should grow out of the NCIP standards.  Last time I visited those it felt like many of the old library protocols but rewritten using XML – still an excellent library programmer initiation tool.

So is ISO ILL falling out of favour – yes, at last I think we are seeing the beginnings of that happening.

My question is though, have these standards for interconnecting discrete library systems together, had their day?  Although libraries have been at the forefront of interconnecting systems over many years.  The adoption of Web Services in the wider Internet world has rapidly overtaken that lead.  It is no accident that the work we are doing with the Talis Platform is building upon these wider techniques and then applying them to library issues – not the other way around.

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