Benefits of NCIP

John Bodfish

Senior Technical Designer

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September 19, 2006

Agenda

• Overview of the NCIP Standard

• Example implementations

• What implementers should know and expect from NCIP

• What libraries should know and expect from NCIP

• Future direction of NCIP

Committee Charge

• Define transactions– needed for circulation systems– among independent “library” systems

• Facilitate– direct patron borrowing– remote patron authentication– circulation/ILL interaction– online payment– controlled access to electronic resources

Scope of Standard

• Defines services, the messages that comprise those services and the structure and semantics of message elements.

• Does not define circulation functions or policies

• Does not define user interface

Applications Supported

• Circulation/InterLibrary Loan Interaction

• Direct Consortial Borrowing

• Self-service Circulation

• Access to Electronic Resources

• It had to support those, it may be able to support others

Object Classes

• Users

• Items

• Agencies (Libraries)

Service Types

• Lookup– “Tell me these things about this object.”

• Update– “Please take this action.”

• Notification– “I have taken this action.”

• Service Types are comprised of Services.

Service Definitions

• Every “Service” is a pair of messages:– an “Initiation Message”– and a “Response Message”

• Each message provides complete context for it to be understood– The protocol is designed NOT to require any

particular sequence of services.

Lookup Service

• Lookup Agency

• Lookup Item

• Lookup User

• Lookup Version

• Authenticate User

• Lookup Request (version 1.01)

Lookup Service Restrictions

• Lookups require a Unique Id

• They do not support discovery or searching

Update Services

• Typical Circulation Transactions:– Request Item and Cancel Request Item– Check Out Item and Undo Check Out Item– Renew Item– Recall Item and Cancel Recall Item – Send User Notice– Check In Item– Accept Item

Update Services (cont.)

• Object maintenance:– Create Agency and Update Agency– Create Item, Update Item, Update Request Item,

Update Circulation Status and Report Circulation Status Change

– Create User and Update User– Create User Fiscal Transaction

• Create Services used for new objects• Update Services include modify and delete

Notification Services

• Typical Circulation Transactions:– Item Requested and Item Request Cancelled– Item Checked Out– Item Renewed– Item Recalled and Item Recall Cancelled– User Notice Sent– Item Checked In– Item Shipped and Item Received

Notification Services (cont.)

• Object maintenance:– Agency Created and Agency Updated– Item Created, Item Updated, Item Request

Updated, Circulation Status Updated and Circulation Status Change Reported

– User Created and User Updated– User Fiscal Transaction Created

Notification Response

• Notifications occur after the fact

• The only permitted responses are– Did not understand message– Understood message

Message Structure

• Syntax and Encoding

• Enumerated Types: Scheme/Value pairs

• Datatypes

Syntax and Encoding

• XML DTD

• UTF-8 encoding of Unicode – ASCII character encoding is the same in this

encoding, but …– Other systems are NOT restricted to ASCII,

and you should be prepared to receive such data.

Enumerated Types: Scheme/Value pairs

• Enumerated data types are represented by a pair of elements: Scheme and Value.

• Ensures that codes (the Value element) are in a context (the Scheme element).

• Provides for extensibility

Scheme/Values (cont.)

• Example enumerated types:– Language

• Defined by ISO 639-2 Bibliographic Language Codes

– Currency Codes:• Defined by ISO 4217:1995 Codes for the

representation of currencies and funds.

Scheme/Values (cont.)

• Allows for extensibility– The Standard provides a Bibliographic Record

Identifier Code scheme including these values:

• ANBN, BGF, BNBN, CN, LCCN, NLM TCN, OCLC, RLIN

– If you need a different list you can define your own scheme

Scheme/Values (cont.)

• Three kinds of Schemes:– Closed, Enumerated

• Those defined in the Standard must be supported in order to conform

• New schemes may NOT be defined

– Open, Enumerated• Those defined in the Standard must be supported in order to

conform• New schemes may be defined

– Open, Not Enumerated• None are defined in the Standard

Scheme Registration

• Scheme names conform to URI specification

• Values within any scheme must be unique

• Once published, the list of values must not change in any way

• NCIP maintenance agency will host a registration service.

Datatypes

• Taken from XML Datatypes– http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/

• 6 datatypes:– boolean

• “true”, “false”, “1”, “0”

– integer– nonNegativeInteger– positiveInteger

Datatypes (cont.)

– timeInstant• Restricted to ISO 8601’s “Extended format”• Expressed in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

– “CCYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.sssZ”

– string– You can append “-hh:mm” or “+hh:mm” to indicate local

time as a difference (plus or minus) from UTC.

• Expressed as fixed attributes in the DTD.– In the non-normative XML Schema these are

proper datatypes.

Technical Foundation

• Application Roles

• Messaging

• Required Behavior Rules

• Security

Application Roles

• For a given connection, there is:– 1 and only 1 initiating application (e.g., self-

service machine), and– 1 and only 1 responding application (e.g., circ

system).

• Initiators may NOT send a second message until the first is responded to.

• Responders may NOT send initiation messages on that connection.

Application Roles (cont.)

• Applications MAY establish multiple connections at the same time.

• The Standard is written in terms of “initiating application” and “responding application”; this is always in the context of a given connection, not in the broader context of the application as a whole.

Messaging

• State Tables

• Transport Requirements

• Transport Protocol(s)

Messaging State Tables

• Do NOT govern the state of the circulation transaction

• DO govern the state of the exchange of the initiation/response message pair– Initiating application is in IDLE or WAITING

state– Responding application is in IDLE or

PROCESSING state

Defined Transport Protocols

• Initiator chooses from these 3: – TCP/IP– HTTP– HTTPS

• Responder must reply on same connection

Omission of Requested Elements

• Applies to entire Lookup Service Type and to “piggy-backed” lookups on Update Services.

• Permits omission of some of the data the initiator asked for.

• Permits omission of the “Electronic Resource” element if the responder would rather not supply it in the response message.

Update Processing

• Responding application will behave as if all deletions requested were performed before all additions requested in the same message

• If an update to one element causes an update to another element not specifically asked - a Notification message may be used to inform the other side– Example - change of birthday causes user

category to change

Messaging Errors

• Indicate lack of understanding of the message:– Invalid XML– XML not conformant to the DTD– Unknown scheme

Processing Errors

• Indicate inability or unwillingness to perform the action requested– User Delinquent– Unknown item– Item does not circulate (Checkout)– Maximum renewals exceeded (Renewal)

Document Structure

• Protocol Definition

• Implementation Profile 1

• XML DTD/Schema

• Application Profiles

Application Profiles

• Currently three application areas:– Consortial borrowing– Circulation / ILL– Self-service

• May be multiple profiles per application area

• Define how to use NCIP within a given application context

Application Profiles (cont.)

• Profiles can define:– Messages used– Message sequencing– Optional data elements that are mandatory– Transport protocols required– Schemes required or available– Security requirements– Use cases

Application Profiles (cont.)

• Some Application Profiles Written by NCIP Committee – meant as proof of concept for what Application Profiles should contain.

• Intent is that Application Profiles will be developed to define requirements of specific Applications/Implementations.

Example Implementations

• Interlibrary loan

• Patron self-service

• Direct Consortial Borrowing

Interlibrary Loan Example: Ship

Shipped messagewith due date Check Out Item with user

and item IDs

RequestingLibrary Supplying Library

CirculationSystemCheck Out Item Response

with due date

Renew Item Response with due date

Interlibrary Loan Example: Renew

Renew Answer message with due date

Renew Item with item ID, due date and

Mandated Action flag

Renew message

Renew Item with item ID

CirculationSystem

CirculationSystem

Supplying LibraryRequesting

Library

Renewal Notice

Renew Item Response

Patron Self-Service Example: Registration

Create User with name, address and email address

LearningManagement

System

CirculationSystemCreate User Response with

user ID

Direct Consortial Borrowing Example: Check Out Item

Lookup Agency Response with Authentication Prompt data

Lookup Agency with Agency Id and Authentication Prompt Element Type

Item OwningLibrary

User’s HomeLibrary Lookup User Response

with privileges

Lookup User with credentials

Item Checked Out Response

Item Checked Out with due date

Direct Consortial Borrowing Example: Overdue Notice

Item OwningLibrary

User’s HomeLibrary Send User Notice

Response

Send User Notice with ‘Overdue’ data

What Implementers Should Know

• Designers:– Protocol, particularly the services you will use.

• Programmers:– Protocol and Implementation Profile 1– XML, Unicode UTF-8

• There are tools to help with mapping XML to objects (e.g. for Java there’s Castor or JAXB).

– Internet transports (TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS)• There are standard ways to pass messages over these

transports; don’t “roll your own” if you can avoid it.

• The NCIP-IG has a Roadmap document to guide your staff through the learning process.

What Implementers Should Expect

• Like with all standards, there will be surprising differences of interpretation between implementers– Expect early testing to be slow going

• Be mindful of what you expect from other standards (e.g. MARC, Z39.50)– There are many differences that haven’t mattered because the

results were being read by humans (e.g. contents of MARC 001 field) which you will now be using in an automated fashion so their contents must be “right.”

• It will help responders greatly if the initiators reach consensus if they’re doing similar things– E.g., Circ/ILL and DCB-3 turned out to be virtually identical.

What Libraries Should Know

• NCIP can automate many routine tasks in many areas of the library.

• NCIP implementations will require two (or more) vendors to co-operate.

• Understand key NCIP enumerated types:– E.g., how does NCIP’s “Agency” map to your

circulation units (e.g. service desks, branches, etc.) – this will depend on how your circ vendor implements NCIP.

What Libraries Should Expect

• Initial deployment of NCIP for any vendor is likely to be rough going.– Multiple updates to two or more systems will

have to be co-ordinated.

• This is a big part of the future of library automation (not just NCIP)– Interoperation between systems for “micro

services”– Using XML, Unicode, HTTPS

Future Directions

• Simplification

• Relationship to ISO ILL

• Library standards as a whole

• Web 2.0