[Koha] ILS Basic Discovery Interfaces

[Galen Charlton]

Hi,

On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 9:32 AM, MJ Ray <mjr at phonecoop.coop> wrote:
> Hi all!  I just spotted a standard for OPAC web interfaces which
>  LibLime seem to have signed up for last month.  It's been under
>  development since last summer, but it doesn't seem to have been
>  mentioned on the list yet as far as I found.

The Digitial Library Federation (DLF) ILS-DI taskforce anncounced it's
original call for participation last year; see

http://blogs.lib.berkeley.edu/shimenawa.php/2007/05/23/ils_abstraction_api.

LibLime's involvement thus far has been to accept an invitation sent
in January to various vendors and some representatives of OSS
discovery interfaces to attend a face-to-face meeting in Berkeley on 6
March.

>  Could one of the LibLimers tell us if this applies to Koha and if so,
>  why's it good for Koha and were any other Koha vendors invited to
>  collaborate, get involved or even informed?

As summarized by the link below, the ILS-DI has thus far achieved some
notion of a glimmer of an agreement that a small set of APIs ought to
be exposed by ILSs for use by external discovery systems such as
VUFind and Endeca.  This is not yet anything one could call a firm
standard.  However, part of the proposal is already supported in
principle by Koha because of the OAI-PMH interface courtesy of Paul
and the Ecole des Mines; for the rest the ILS-DI has not yet proposed
any firm specifications.

Frankly, the most immediate benefit if an clear API gets developed
will be to the customers of the proprietary ILSs.  However, LibLime
expects that Koha users may well find such interfaces useful, either
to use a separate discovery layer, participate in a union catalog, or
for any other application that may arise.

On February 21, prior to the meeting in Berkeley, the ILS-DI started a
Google Group (http://groups.google.com/group/ils-di) to invite
discussion of the proposal.  This announcement was made to various
library mailing lists, including CODE4LIB and NGC4LIB.

Discussion of the proposal is ongoing, particularly for the item
availability API, which at present has no useful binding to any
existing library standard.  This discussion is taking place primarily
on the Code4Lib maling list, #code4lib, and also
http://groups.google.com/group/jangle-discuss.

I cannot speak definitively as to whether the ILS-DI invited other
Koha vendors, although i assume not.  However, the taskforce is in my
opinion honestly open to input; if any other Koha vendors want to go
beyond participating in the discussion lists and formally support (or
reject, or ignore) the proposal, they are free to do so.

>  "At the meeting, participants agreed to support a set of essential
>  functions through open protocols and technologies by deploying
>  specific recommended standards. [...]
>
>  Undersigned by: [...] LibLime"
>
>  Source: http://blogs.lib.berkeley.edu/shimenawa.php/2008/04/04/ils_basic_discovery

Assuming that a workable specification arises from the ILS-DI process,
LibLime will implement the required APIs, assuming nobody else has a
burning desire to so.  The code will be submitted to the Koha project
per our normal practice; if the Koha community does not want it in the
mainline, then LibLime will maintain it as a contrib.

Regards,

Galen
-- 
Galen Charlton
Koha Application Developer
LibLime
galen.charlton at liblime.com
p: 1-888-564-2457 x709