[OPEN-ILS-DEV] NCIP to OCLC VDX

[Jason Stephenson]

Quoting "Elfstrand, Stephen F" <stephen.elfstrand at mnsu.edu>:

>
> Dear Devlist, & General List
>
> In Minnesota we have a state-wide resource sharing gateway that uses  
> VDX from OCLC. The work on NCIP that has been done already focuses  
> in NICP for III (Innovative Interfaces) and we were told by OCLC  
> that it will not work with VDX. Since NCIP between Evergreen and  
> OCLC VDX is vital to our goal of bringing more Minnesota c libraries  
> into the Evergreen fold.
>
>
> PALS will work on this as a development project by using what's been  
> done already and build on it. We have developers but wonder if our  
> efforts could benefit by creating some partnerships to get this work  
> done. Is anyone else out there interested in Evergreen - NCIP - VDX?  
>  If so are you interested in contributing time or money to this  
> project?

You can do that, but if you build on iNCIPit you are very likely going  
to have to build and maintain a separate application for each NCIP  
profile and version that you want to support. Note that there are five  
versions of NCIP floating around (1.0, 1.01, 2.0, 2.01, 2.02), not to  
mention all of the various incompatible profiles. It seems that every  
commercial vendor wants to create their own profile because they can  
and because that leads to lockin.

That said, MVLC is undertaking to develop a more comprehensive NCIP  
solution for Evergreen.

The intention is to start with a mod_perl module under OpenILS::WWW  
that is seamlessly integrated into Evergreen. This web front end will  
be designed primarily as a minimalist message parser and module loader  
so that new NCIP messages can be supported by simply adding a code  
module to process them. Different NCIP versions and profiles can be  
supported in a similar fashion.

There will be a separate configuration file, similar to that used by  
SIP and Z39.50, to provide the necessary configuration for local  
conditions and various profiles, etc.

We will use the existing SIP backend code where possible and, when  
necessary, add additional functionality to the SIP backend. This will  
give us the benefit of maintaining 1 set of code. NCIP can benefit  
from existing SIP features and SIP will benefit from new NCIP features  
where they overlap.

The long run goal is to support all NCIP versions and messages if  
possible, though we will begin by focusing on NCIP version 2.02 and  
the messages necessary to integrate with our state's new ILL system.

The intention here is not to add complexity, though we feel a certain  
degree of complexity is necessary in order to make something that is  
generically useful and easily extensible for the whole community.

>
>
> Stephen F. Elfstrand
> PALS Executive Director
> ML3022
> Mn. St. Univ. - Mankato
> Mankato MN 56001
>
> 507.389.2000
> http://www.mnpals.org/
>
>
>
>



-- 
Jason Stephenson
Assistant Director for Technology Services
Merrimack Valley Library Consortium

-- 
Jason Stephenson
Assistant Director for Technology Services
Merrimack Valley Library Consortium