Message-Id: <199602051702.LAA00362@library.wustl.edu> Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 10:59:57 -0600 From: Jeff Huestis <mailto:Jeff-Huestis@LIBRARY.WUSTL.EDU> Subject: Re: Loose Ends To: Multiple recipients of list WEBCAT-L <mailto:WEBCAT-L@WUVMD.WUSTL.EDU>
On Mon, 5 Feb 1996, Jerry Caswell wrote:>
> > Conceivably, the catalog search
> > could be performed on other libraries' catalogs via Z39.50 linkages,
> > with the result being a partially filled out interlibrary loan request on
the > > user's browser display. Both the local holding display and the
> > interlibrary loan service assume the ability to connect to a catalog, and
> > execute a one-step probe to an individual record--in other words, a
> > CGI application with all the necessary form data concatenated onto the
> > URL.
>
> One corollary to this is that the ILL request would then be
> sent to the library where the item was located. However, in actual
> practice, interlibrary loan requests are governed by a series of
> inter-institutional relationships that are quite removed from the
> navigational paths that users may take on the Internet. The ILL
> people that I know are insisting that those relationships still
> govern borrowing transactions irrespective of the source of the
> user's request.
>
I missed a beat here. If the whole process is being mediated by the local web gateway, isn't this where you put the "smarts" to route the request to the local ILL dept? The point of connecting to a remote catalog (or several catalogs) would be to save searching time in the ILL dept. There is no reason that the remote catalog couldn't be OCLC, etc. My main point in this scenario was that this is happening from within the context of looking at a web-accessible electronic document--pulling the pieces of the user's working environment closer together. Of course, maybe, realistically, that isn't such a good idea...Jeff Huestis Washington University Libraries