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ILS Discovery Interfaces

In 2007-2008, the DLF convened a Task Group to recommend standard interfaces for integrating the data and services of the Integrated Library System (ILS) with new applications supporting user discovery. This page gives access to the group's recommendation, related materials, and information on followup activities.

The recommendation

The Task Group's official recommendation (revision 1.1) was released in December 2008. You can download it in PDF or Microsoft Word format.

Older recommendations

Revision 1.1 was revised from the original (1.0) recommendation, based on the consensus of an August meeting of ILS developers and vendors at Berkeley, The older version is still available for download in PDF or Microsoft Word format. A summary of the significant changes between version 1.0 and 1.1, and their rationale, can be found here.

Schema

Version 1.1 of the XML schema used for some of the basic discovery interface replies can be found here. This schema is based on revision 1.1 of the document. The schema based on the older revision 1.0 can be found found here. (Later revisions will vary their URL in a similar fashion.)

Example implementations

A proof-of-concept implementation of the recommendation's Level 1 ("Basic Discovery Interface") specifications is online. More information about it can be found here.

We hope to add links to other implementations of the Level 1 recommendations, in development or in production, on actual ILS's.

Other task group activity

Additional materials from the Task Group can be found at their wiki. The wiki is not permanent, but we plan to move materials of ongoing interest to this site shortly, including information from the Task Group's survey of library professionals.