NISO Announces Availability of NCIP Implementer Registry

Site brings together information about vendors' implementations of NCIP

Baltimore, MD - November 10, 2010 - NISO is pleased to announce the availability of the NCIP Implementer Registry, a site that allows vendors to share information about their implementations of the NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol (ANSI/NISO Z39.83, Parts 1 and 2). NCIP addresses the need for interoperability among disparate circulation, interlibrary loan, and related applications by standardizing the exchange of messages between and among computer-based applications.
At this time, the following vendors have indicated their use of NCIP by signing up for the registry: Auto-Graphics, Ex Libris, Innovative Interfaces, Inc., and Rapid Radio. The registry is linked from the NCIP website (www.niso.org/workrooms/ncip) and from the NCIP maintenance agency site (www.ncip.info).

The registry allows vendors to enter information about their implementations of Version 1 of the standard, now deprecated but still widely used, and Version 2 of the standard, the current version of the standard adopted in 2008. Vendors may participate in the standard as an initiator of messages, a responder to messages, or both.

By making this information publicly available, libraries will be able to see which vendors currently support NCIP, which version(s) of the standard are supported, and which messages in the standard are supported. In 2010 the NCIP Standing Committee defined two sets of core messages for accomplishing essential tasks: the Resource Sharing and the Self-Service. All required messages must be enabled for a vendor to claim support for a core message set. Depending on the role the vendor is playing in the transaction, the vendor must either support the messages as an initiator or responder.

NCIP Standing Committee member Susan Campbell (Research & Development Consultant, College Center for Library Automation), who, with Mary Jackson (Product Manager, Resource Sharing, Auto-Graphics, Inc.) developed the Drupal-based registry for the committee, noted, "The new registry builds on years of work on NCIP. It is a key next step to help libraries better understand which vendors provide NCIP, which NCIP messages are supported, and how those might in turn support what the library needs in order to more efficiently provide resource sharing or self-service services to their users. I am pleased to make this registry available and look forward to seeing its growth."

Rob Walsh, President of EnvisionWare, the Maintenance Agency for NCIP, as well as co-chair for NISO's Discovery to Delivery Topic Committee, which provides oversight to the NCIP Standing Committee, added, "This is a wonderful step forward for NCIP. The registry is just one of the tools that the Standing Committee has been working on to support NCIP implementers and users. By making this information more broadly available, the community will be able to make better informed decisions to help meet their customers' and patrons' needs."

The NCIP Standing Committee is working to develop additional user tools. For more information, visit the NCIP website at www.niso.org/workrooms/ncip or the NCIP maintenance agency home at www.ncip.info.

About NISO
NISO, based in Baltimore, Maryland, fosters the development and maintenance of standards that facilitate the creation, persistent management, and effective interchange of information so that it can be trusted for use in research and learning. To fulfill this mission, NISO engages libraries, publishers, information aggregators, and other organizations that support learning, research, and scholarship through the creation, organization, management, and curation of knowledge. NISO works with intersecting communities of interest and across the entire lifecycle of an information standard. NISO is a not-for-profit association accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).

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