I'm posting the following on behalf of Mary Jackson of ARL. I think this will be of interest to some readers. Clifford


Principles for NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol -- Review Requested

In late 1998, NISO (National Information Standards Organization) appointed
a standards committee (Committee AT) to define the various transactions
needed to support circulation activities among independent library
systems.  Such activities might support direct borrowing among members of a consortium, or the automation of the interface between a library's
interlibrary loan and local circulation system.  The committee has worked actively over the last ten months.

As a first step, the committee developed a set of principles and
guidelines that it will use in drafting the full standard.  This document is available on the NISO Web site
(http://www.niso.org/drafts/z3982v1.html).  A form for submitting comments is available with the document.

The committee invites comments from all interested parties between now
and November 30, 1999.  Members of the committee will review comments as
they are received, and all comments will be discussed at the committee's
December 12-14, 1999 meeting in San Diego, CA. The document includes a timeline for work and a schedule of meetings.
Further background information on the committee and meeting minutes are
available on the NISO web site at http://www.niso.org/commitat.html.


Thank you,

Mary Jackson
Association of Research Libraries
on behalf of NISO Committee AT


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   Mary E. Jackson mary@arl.org
   Senior Program Officer for Access Services 202/296-2296
   Association of Research Libraries 202/251-4432 cell phone
   21 Dupont Circle, N.W.  Suite 800 202/872-0884 fax
   Washington, D.C.   20036  USA http://www.arl.org/
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