Integration in Digital Library: Uniform Access to Loan

Service

Ciro D'Urso

Italian Senate, via Giustiniani 11, 00186 Rome, Italy

ciro.durso@senato.it

Abstract. Systems integration in digital library is a critical success factor in

order to simplify the access, for end-users and operators, to the distributed,
heterogeneous and dynamic collection of entities and services provided by
information sources. One of the most important functions supplied by digital
libraries is the loan service. In this paper we propose, as an idea for further
discussion, a flexible and dynamic cooperative architecture that provides a
single access point to a federated system composed of distributed and
autonomous digital libraries, such as to support the application for loan of a
library item (e.g. textual or electronic or microform books, music, sound
recordings, visual materials).
Keywords: Digital libraries, cooperative systems, publish/subscribe paradigm.

1 Introduction

In the evolving enviroment of Digital Libraries the support of information systems is

a strategic issue. Scientists and technicians have to deal with large-scale, distributed
systems characterized by constraints such as dynamic systems evolution, integration
with existent systems, heterogeneity and autonomy of information sources. This paper
is focused on the survey of an architecture to supply to the users an uniform access to
loan service, avoiding the tedious task of searching in each source indipendently using
a particular inteface (via OPAC or ILL application).

2 Related Work

In the context of integration in digital libraries, and in autonomous database systems

in general, much work has been done to resolve issues such as data integration [1,2]
and information retrieval based on mediation infrastructure [3,5,6,8], and query
reformulation [4]. In the field of loan service the research has been focused on inter-
library loan (ILL) applications and many solutions have been proposed according to
the ISO standards (i.e. 10160, 10161-1, 10161-2) [10]. There are solutions based on
consortia such as: ILSCO group in Illinois; the OHIOLINK system; the CIC
(Committee on Institutional Cooperation) among some schools and University of
2 Ciro D'Urso

Chicago; the CLAMS initiative (Cope Libraries Automated Materials) in

Massachussets; the North Bay Cooperative System in California; the OCLC
consortium (On line Computer Library Center) that provides services as FirstSearch
and ILL Direct Request [11]; and, just to cite an Italian important experience, the
Sistema Bibliotecario Nazionale (SBN), a catalog based system that allows members
to apply a request of items via a dedicated application [12]. Furthemore there are
some off-the-shelf software packages, such as Aleph and Sebina, that provide their
own solution to ILL issue. However, in the most of previous cited experiences, the
integration is far to be complete, often the user has to carry out more than one
application and is required to fill out separate request forms based on different
protocols (e.g. OPAC over http or ILL service over telnet protocol). One shortcoming
implied by the majority of the cited approaches consists in requiring that each
member of a particular consortium, in order to give an active contribution in terms of
information and service sharing, create bibliographic records using the same format
and/or install the same software package. This represents a very severe constraint in a
federated system composed of autonomous and heterogeneous sites, with their own
information systems that might model the world in its own way.

3 Background

Without loss of generality we can suppose that we deal with a consortium of libraries
supported by a central entity (Digital Libraries Center) in some general tasks (e.g.
management of consortium’s portal on the web with authentication and profiling
functions, provision of some common services such as digital imaging and centralized
billing). We state this hypotesis as H1:
H1 Membership and profiling. Each customer is associated to one and only one
library (called “personal library”), and the Digital Library Center (DLC) keeps
trace of this association. In addition the portal of DLC is able to profile the users
when they access the resource on the Web.

We state as the first requirement R1 the fundamental objective of the proposed

architecture:
R1 Uniform access. The proposed architecture must allow users to apply a request of
item loan by means of a single interface, avoiding the need of searching and
asking for the availability of the item in each source.

In order to connect a library (i.e. a domain of federated system) to cooperative

system, the most important activity consists of design and development of an adapter
to legacy systems. The adapter is essential to integrate a general cooperative system
into the domain’s environment. It converts information from the data objects handled
by core system into data understood by legacy applications of the domain, and vice
versa. The software components realizing the adapters (one for each domain) must
minimize the burden to the information systems of libraries. We state this requirement
as R2:
 Integration in Digital Library: Uniform Access to Loan Service 3

R2 Heterogeneous federation. The proposed architecture must allow the coexistence

of both small and large libraries connected to it, requiring the installation of just a
minimal adapter without any need to modify the legacy systems of the libraries
connected.

In the context that we are surveying, the scalability is a critical factor. We state
this requirement as R3:
R3 Support for evolution. The proposed architecture must be capable of adapting,
with minimum effort, to changes in the information systems of libraries connected
and to a growth of number of members.

When a user apply for a loan request, there could be some libraries not
connected to the system, because of network problems or maintenance activity.
Therefore the system must be able to queue events for disconnected clients until they
reconnect. We state this requirement as R4:
R4 Support for disconnection. The proposed architecture must assure message
delivery to subscribers even if they are disconnected.

It should be possible to request the delivery of only events with a particular

attribute (e.g. the publisher of message or the type of message such as “Loan
Request” or “Response to the Loan Request”). Without loss of generality, we can
consider all possible attributes as part of the event’s subject. We state this requirement
as R5:
R5 Support for filtering. The architecture proposed must allow subscribers to request
delivery of only some of the messages managed by the system, according to their
subject.

4 Solution

In order to satisfy the previous requirements (from R2 to R5), we decide to use a

global event notification system based on the publish/subscribe (P&S) paradigm [7],
in which multiple, autonomous parties existing in different domains of trust (i.e.
digital libraries) interoperate with each other, exchanging messages (also called
“events”) with a particular subject. There are many software packages in commerce
that, over the Internet network, carry out a P&S system, they can be chosen according
to technological valuations (e.g. J2EE versus .NET platform). Typically the messages
are encoded in XML, once established in advance an appropriate schema for each sort
of event.

4.1 Principles

The system’s design must be guided by following principles, in accordance with R1

requirement.
4 Ciro D'Urso

P1 Multiple subscribers. All the libraries, connected to the P&S system and with
support of the loan functionality, are subscribers to events of the type “Request for
Loan” sent by the DLC.
P2 Single subscriber. Only the DLC is subscriber of events of the type “Response to
the Loan Request”, independently from which library has sent it.

4.2 Logical Flow

In Figure 1 is depicted the logical view of the Loan System, notice that the P&S
system could be part of the Digital Library Center itself or could be managed by
another entity. In the context of a loan request, the interactions among user, DLC and
the P&S system, are the following (see the sequence numbers in Figure 1).

User Interface

1 Message
XML Parser Profiling
Generator
User 8 Engine
Library Selector

Loan Engine Authentication Broker

Digital Library Center

Adapter
2 7

Publish/Subscribe System

3 5 4 6

Adapter Adapter
Digital Library Digital Library
A B

Fig. 1. Logical View of the Loan System.

1: The user requests, by means of a single interface on the web, the availability of a
library item, using as identifier a unique code according to an international
standard (e.g. ISBN code);
2: The DLC acts as publisher and composes a “loan request” message, and assigns a
unique identifier to the request;
 Integration in Digital Library: Uniform Access to Loan Service 5

3,4: All the libraries that can loan an item are subscribers to “loan request” event;
5,6: The adapter, after parsing the XML message, verifies the availability of the item
requested (e.g. the submission of a query SQL to the relational database
representing the catalogue), subsequently it publishes the response (item
available or not, from which library the message is sent, the identifier of the loan
request);
7: The DLC receives the events (according to P2 principle) and treats them, in order
to establish which library will be the lender. It stores all the responses for a
specific period of time (depending on the policy of consortium), afterwards it
processes them to find out the best choice in terms of time to delivery and costs;
8: The DLC sends an e-mail to user, telling if and when the item requested will be
available at the user’s personal library;
9: The library selected as lender sends the item to user’s personal library.

4.3 Adapter

The subjects cooperating through the P&S system can be outlined as domains with
own portfolio of applications and organizational rules. They interact through two
general entities: publication gate and subscription gate, as represented in Figure 2.
Broadly speaking the overall P&S system is constituted by the following components
(Figure 3):
• P&S Core System
• Publication Gate
• Subscription Gate
• Publication Gateway
• Subscription Gateway

The Core System is the heart of the P&S system, it realizes all the functionalities of
the model, providing the gates services of publication and subscription queue
management, administration services (definition of the events to be published,
subscription of particular events, modification of the subscription lists), and log
services. Therefore it consitutes a common component for the domains.
Publication and Subscription Gates decouple the domains from Core System. They
are developed, like the Core System, once for all and they do not need any
personalizations at application layer in order to install them in the particular domain
(typically they are developed in several versions only due to features of network and
trasport layers of each domains). They represent the standard interface with which
information systems of domains interact with Core System.
Publication and Subscription Gateway insulate the communication mechanism (the
gates) from the characteristics of each legacy system. Gateways act as the translator
between the legacy system and the gate, which in turn relays information to the core.
Because the gates are domain-independent, these gateways provide a coupling layer
between a particular legacy system’s characteristics and the generalities of the gate.
6 Ciro D'Urso

Publication Subscription
Gate Gate

P&S Core
System
Subscription Publication
Gate Gate

Domain A Domain B

Fig. 2. Overall view of cooperation among domains based on a publish-subscribe paradigm.

Publication gates and gateways, along with subscription gates and gateways, are
the adapter for each domain. In publication, the adapter is responsible for composing
the message according to the established schema and delivering it to the core. In
subscription, on the other hand, the adapter picks up the message and processes it
based on its subject. The adapter is essential for integrating the publish-subscribe
system into the domain’s enviroment; it takes information in the form of data objects
that the core can use and converts it into data understood by the domain’s legacy
system, and vice versa.
PUBLISHER SUBSCRIBER

P S
U U
G G
L B B L
A A
E B S E
T T
G L. P&S Core C G
E E
A System R. A
W W
C G C
A A
Y A G Y
Y Y
T A
E T
E

DOMAIN A DOMAIN B
Adapter Adapter

Fig. 3. Layer view of event notification system and connection with domains.
 Integration in Digital Library: Uniform Access to Loan Service 7

As general considerations about the model outlined so far, we have to take into
account at least two main issues: volume of data and metadata. Although the number
of messages distributed by the system doesn’t represent a problem due to scalable
solutions available as off-the-shelf software modules, the dimension of a single
message requires a detailed analysis based upon performance and capacity
requirements. Furthermore in order to effectively use the system, the actors have to
define some standards for the format of all possible messages and for the meaning of
each items in them. It is necessary an agreement about DTDs or XML Schemas,
meaning of each possible items in a message (e.g. items identification based on public
standards as, just to cite a few, ISBN, DOI, ONIX, ISRC, ISAN, ISMN), and each
possible types of message (e.g. agreement on all possible message subjects in an
subject-based implementation [9]). As an example of how the agreements could be
accomplished we can consider the principle P1 previously introduced. We can
insulate the main concepts to be analyzed in the definition of the structure of the
message "Request for Loan" considering the framework defined by the "Delos
reference model" [13]. In particular we have to deal with concepts of the Content
Domain such as Information Objects, so we consider some of the main characteristics
such as Resource identifier and Resource Format. Note that the identifier here is
referred to the library items and not to the corresponding metadata, however would be
also worth analyze the use of a common format based on standards such as URI (RFC
2396) for the identification of the metadata items in the repository of a generic library.
Furthermore similar characteristics have to be taken into account for the concepts
belonging to User Domain besides the Profile of the actors of the overall system. The
Policy Domain is also involved, in terms of Request Management Policies (e.g.
category of the request: normal, urgent). Therefore for the event "Request for Loan"
all the actors involved should be able to elaborate messages structured in accordance
with a kind of W3C XML Schema such as that represented in figure 4.

Fig. 4. Design view of the XML Schema of the message "Request for Loan".
8 Ciro D'Urso

4.4 Time and cost

The interaction steps described for dealing with a loan request have as a main aspect
the need to choose which library is the lender for a particular item. The elaboration is
based on the two parameters: time and cost. How do the two dimensions interact?
Time to deliver depends on the "distance" (in terms of physical space and means of
shipping) between the lender and the borrower, and also on the storing period applied
by the system (the average time the system waits before process a request, in order to
allow temporary disconnected library to respond, and in order to organize a shipping
with the optimal number of items). On the other hand cost parameter depends on the
same concept of "distance" and on the shipping policiy adopted. Therefore the system
has to calculate the trade-off between time and cost as functions of number of items
per shipping between one borrower and one lender, as depicted in figure 4.

Time
Cost

Number of items shipped

Fig. 5. Time and Cost as functions of items shipped together.

5 Conclusion

In this paper we described a system able to supply an uniform access to the loan
service. We stated some requirements and decided to base the system on P&S
paradigm. The implementation of logic flow is very simple, on the other hand
developement activities are necessary in order to design adapters for each library.
There are some issues related to Library Selector component (see Figure 1) that give
some grades of freedom in the choice of DLC policy (e.g. how long it waits before
sending an e-mail to user, what features have to be taken into consideration in order to
select the best lender). In addition the system proposed can be used for other
objectives involving asyncronous communications among libraries belonging to a
consortium.
 Integration in Digital Library: Uniform Access to Loan Service 9

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