Standards, or free for all?

One of the principal contributory factors to the rapid take-up of RFID systems in the library world has been the view – taken by vendors and buyers alike – that solutions for individual libraries or networks can be considered to be closed loops. In such a scenario, there is no need to be concerned about standards or interoperability with other libraries – let alone other organizations – as the emphasis is entirely on RFID's performance within the local context.

This is perhaps not too surprising. It is arguable that – despite a raft of standards relating to cataloguing, indexing and other professional staples – it is only comparatively recently (since the coming of the internet?) that interoperability has been the focus of much attention in the world of library technology, with most systems being largely proprietary.

More specifically – and crucially – the level of interoperability between different manufacturers’ LMS has been very low. Even though this has begun to change, it still remains a major concern and has long been an obstacle to joint working. One example of this (among many) is a project begun in 1999/2000, jointly funded by the UK's Department of Culture Media and Sport and the Wolfson Foundation (DCMS, 2000), which saw the creation of a public library cooperative organization in the east of England, called CO-EAST, whose primary remit included the provision of unmediated interlibrary loans between the 14 authorities in the region, allowing the customers of one library service to place holds on material held by any of the others.

For this to work, it was necessary to get three different LMS to communicate with each other, providing not only the facility to search individual catalogues – a comparatively straightforward project – but also to recognize the details and status of the members of 14 different library services. Unfortunately, this simple-sounding concept proved impossible to put into practice, and some six years after CO-EAST was set up (and despite many other achievements) it was disbanded, with its initial objective still unfulfilled.