INTEROPERABILITY PROTOCOLS AND STANDARDS IN LIS

INTEROPERABILITY PROTOCOLS AND STANDARDS IN LIS

Dr. Shailendra Kumar

Associate Professor and former Head

Department of Library and Information Science

University of Delhi

[email protected]


INTRODUCTION Interoperability is a property referring to the ability

of diverse systems and organizations to work together (inter-operate).

Interoperability works in different areas like Telecommunication, Software and Hardware, Medical Industry, eGovernment, Public Safety, Railways, Business and Library and Information.


DEFINITIONSInteraoperabilty is the ability of two or more systems or

components to exchange information and to use the information that has been exchanged according to IEEE.

According to ISO/IEC 2382-01, Information Technology Vocabulary, Fundamental Terms, interoperability is defined as follows: "The capability to communicate, execute programs, or transfer data among various functional units in a manner that requires the user to have little or no knowledge of the unique characteristics of those units".


Interoperability is “the ability of information systems to operate in conjunction with each other encompassing communication protocols, hardware, software application and data compatibility layers.” (Interoperability Clearinghouse Glossary of Terms).

Interoperability is “the ability of multiple systems with different hardware and software platforms, data structures, and interfaces to exchange data with minimal loss of content and functionality” (NISO, 2003).


TYPES OF INTEROPERABILITY Syntactic Interoperability Syntactic interoperability may be ensured if two systems follow the

same technical specifications for processing an identifier string, where the scope of the likely identifiers to be encountered is reasonably predictable. In certain cases, rules may exist for directly incorporating an identifier from one scheme in the syntax of another scheme.

Syntactical Interoperability is required for any attempts of further interoperability. If a system is capable of communicating and exchanging data, it is syntactic interoperable. For communicating data, specified data formats, communication protocols, interfaces of descriptions and the like are fundamental. In general XML or SQL standards provide syntactic interoperability.


Semantic InteroperabilitySemantic interoperability deals with an obvious but difficult problem: even

if two identifier strings can be syntactically processed alongside each other, how does a system know what the terms from another system mean? If A says "owner” and B says "owner", are they referring to the same thing? If A says "released" and B says "disseminated", do they mean different things? For effective interoperable management of entities:

• a unique identifier must be associated with a description of the referent entity, using a structured set of elements that provide information about that entity (that is, an identifier must be associated with some structured metadata to be interoperable); and


the only way of unambiguously deciding if one term means the same as another, irrespective of what it is called, is by sharing a single frame of reference. A structured ontology (an explicit formal specification of how to represent the entities that are assumed to exist in some area of interest and the relationships that hold among them) with an underlying model that allows the generation of consistent new relationships, and a method of recording the agreement between the parties whose terms are included in it.


Community interoperabilityIdentifier schemes may carry rights and restrictions on usage of

data associated with those identifiers. An identifier registry authority will need to consider on what basis it is able to collaborate with other schemes, or make its data public; even if this is syntactically and semantically possible there may be barriers to open interoperability. The assignment and use of a particular identifier may have obligations regarding data ownership, data quality, data maintenance, governance, and participation requirements; these restrictions may apply in both commercial and non-commercial settings.


APPROACHES TO INTEROPERABILITY Digital Library aims to support three levels of interoperability: Gathering Harvesting Federation Gathering: Uses Web Crawler for Surface Search and Distributed

Search for Deep Web to collect information from the organizations. Harvesting: Allows higher autonomy. The only requirement is to enable

a limited set of services via a simple exchange (Open Archive Initiatives OAI).

Federation: Implements the strong standards approach with libraries agreeing to use specific standards (Z39.50 and MARC etc.).


PROTOCOLSA protocol is defined as a set of rules or conventions

formulated to control the exchange of data between two entities desiring a connection. Protocols are required to define the exchange of control information between user device and the network. Basic elements of a protocol include data format and signal levels, control information coordination and error handling, and timing.


Important protocols: IP- (Internet Protocol)TCP (Transmission control protocol)FTP (File Transfer protocol)Z39.50SIP2 ( Data Transfer protocol for RFID devices) HTTP (Hypertext Transfer protocol)OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for

Metadata Harvesting)


File Rretrieval ProtocolsThis type of service was one of the earliest ways of retrieving information from computers connected to the Internet. You could view the names of the files stored on the serving computer, but you didn't have any type of graphics and sometimes no description of a file's content. You would need to have advanced knowledge of which files contained the information you sought.


FTP (File Transfer Protocol)This was one of the first Internet services developed and it allows users to move files from one computer to another. Using the FTP program, a user can logon to a remote computer, browse through its files, and either download or upload files (if the remote computer allows). These can be any type of file, but the user is only allowed to see the file name; no description of the file content is included. You might encounter the FTP protocol if you try to download any software applications from the World Wide Web. Many sites that offer downloadable applications use the FTP protocol.


STANDARDS According to the 1979 National Policy on Standards for the

United States, standards can be defined as a prescribed set of rules, conditions or requirements concerning definition of terms and classification of components; specification of materials, performance or operation; definition of procedures; or measurement of quantity and quality in describing materials, products, systems or practices.

A definition or format that has been approved by a recognized standards organization or is accepted as a de facto standard by the industry. Standards exist for programming languages, operating systems, data formats, communications protocols, and electrical interfaces.


Most official computer standards are set by one of the following organizations:

ANSI (American National Standards Institute) BSI (Bureau of Indian Standards) with mark as ISI ITU (International Telecommunication Union) o IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic

Engineers) ISO (International Standards Organization) VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association


Types Of StandardsFrom the point of view of the specification of the standard

and its license to implement it. What varies is the openness or inclusiveness. Standards fall into different categories that varies depending of its openness and inclusiveness as shown in the following scale:

EXCLUSIVE AND CLOSED INCLUSIVE AND OPEN Non Standards -> Closed standards -> RAND standards -> Open

Standards -> Libre Standards


INTEROPERABILITY APPLICATIONS IN LIS

Libraries now find themselves in a very new environment. Even though they have always co-operated with one another and have led standards efforts for decades, their inter-operability has been at arm's length via such means as store and forward interlibrary loans and electronic orders. The initial goals of standardisation were to increase efficiency, e.g. by exchanging cataloguing, by electronic ordering and only secondarily to share resources.


Initial standards efforts in libraries concentrated on record exchange as part of the drive to improve efficiency by sharing cataloguing. This led to a raft of bibliographic standards concentrating on:

the way in which catalogue records are made (contents - cataloguing rules such as AACR2, classification schemes, subject headings, name headings)

how they are identified (LC card number, ISBN, ISSN etc.) how they are structured for exchange (MARC)


Library and Information Standards The following are some key organizations involved in

standards development. ANSI. The American National Standards Institute is the

organization that coordinates the system of voluntary technical standards development in the United States and accredits standards developers. ALA participates in this activity as a member of the Institute. ANSI serves as the clearinghouse for all voluntary standards agencies in the United States.


NISO. The National Information Standards Organization develops and publishes a wide variety of standards, mostly technical in nature, used in library and information services and publishing. NISO is accredited by the American National Standards Institute


NISO standards address the communication needs of libraries, information services, publishing and book trade in such areas as: information transfer formats, identification systems ( codes and numbering systems), publication formats, and library equipment and supplies. Some examples of currently available NISO American National Standards are:

Z39.7 Information Services and UseZ39.41 Printed Information on SpinesZ39.50 Information Retrieval (Z39.50): Application Service Definition and Protocol Specification ( 2003)Z39.84 Syntax for the Digital Object IdentifierZ39.88 OpenURL Framework for Context-Sensitive Services


ISO, TC46. Many standards have implications beyond the United States. To facilitate the international use of standards, ANSI and NISO participate in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which is engaged in the preparation of international standards. Standards for library and information systems are developed by ISO Technical Committee 46.


Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES) The DCMES is a standard for cross-domain information resource

description. Here an information resource is defined to be “anything that has identity”. (Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, 2003).

The OAI Community has defined a common denominator for interoperability among multiple communities while satisfying community specificity. As mapping among multiple metadata formats would place a considerable burden on service providers, who harvest the metadata and use it to build higher-level services. So the protocol mandates a common metadata format: DCMES. It has been adopted as a lowest common-denominator metadata format which all data providers should support. The fifteen elements Dublin Core has over the past several years evolved as a defacto standard for simple cross discipline

metadata and is thus the appropriate choice for a common metadata set.


Library and Information Protocols The protocol provides a set of rules for the

publication and exchange of documents on the Internet. It could be implemented in any group that wishes to distribute documents on the Internet.

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)Whois++Common Indexing Protocol (CIP)Z39.50


Simple Digital Library Interoperability Protocol (SDLIP) Guildford protocol Web services protocol Dienst Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting

(OAI-PMH) SIP2 for RFID system to Transfer Information from

machine to Library Database Information Retrieval from Library Databases on Network

Environment Z39.50 Federated Search Protocols


Z39.50 Protocol ANSI/NISO z39.50 is the American National Standard Information

Retrieval Application Service Definition and Protocol Specification for Open Systems Interconnection. Version 3 of the standard with new facilities and services was released in 1995. ANSI/NISO z39.50 defines a standard procedure for two computers to communicate for the purpose of information retrieval. z39.50 makes it easier to use large information databases by standardizing the procedures and features for searching and retrieving information. Specifically, z39.50 supports information retrieval in a distributed, client and server environment, where a computer operating as a client submits a search request (i.e., a query) to another computer acting as an information server.


Web services protocol-based applications for library networking.

Although the z39.50 protocol has been around since before the Internet era, there problems with this implementation of federated searching.

Some of these are: (i) Z39.50 is a complex and high-level

protocol (ii) The implementation barrier is high for

present web-based systems


(iii) Federated search results from different servers are retrieved at various times depending on the availability of the server and network resources.

In other words, this protocol is very information resource and bandwidth sensitive. As a result of these limitations, a new generation of services have been developed using web services protocols for federated searching. The two new services are SRW (Search and Retrieve Web Service) and SRU (Search and Retrieve URL Service).


Viewing library standardisation chronologically, acquisitions was the next area where libraries strove to increase efficiency co-operatively. Standards for the exchange of orders and interlibrary loan (ILL) data appeared. These commenced with efforts to standardise forms used among libraries and suppliers and these forms served as a good foundation for electronic transactions.

Dr.Shailendra Kumar

University of Delhi

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INTEROPERABILITY PROTOCOLS AND STANDARDS IN LIS