ncip: while interoperability burns...

I spent some time this weekend reading up on document delivery technologies. This includes reading (or scanning, depending on the content) the NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol specification, and on how NCIP is implemented in the real world. The reasoning behind NCIP is stated in NCIP Part 1:

In the absence of an agreed-upon standard for exchanging circulation data, interoperability among disparate applications has been ad hoc and proprietary. The cost of such solutions is high for individual agencies and in any case, these solutions often provide for only a limited exchange of data because proprietary solutions limit the number of implementations that can participate in the exchange.

There are two problems. For consortia borrowing systems: Even with this "agreed-upon standard," it's possible for a vendor to develop a proprietary application that meets the narrow requirements of NCIP in its operability with several or even one other proprietary system, and for the vendor to then market its software as NCIP-compliant.

Some vendor status reports, such as Innovative Interfaces', do not address the integrated library system-level, but rather are focused on DCB-DCB communication. In contrast, the Voyager document and others (including for SirsiDynix Unicorn) describe ILS-level compliance.