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London: 31st March 2000: LASER, (London and South-east Region) the UK’s leading
interlibrary loan consortium, has launched their latest interlending service V3 Online - replacing their long standing Viscount service. V3 Online is based on Fretwell-Downing’s VDX technology
and is billed as a “new kind of resource sharing service that will make the vast stocks of libraries available easily to everyone, whether for lifelong learning, economic and business development,
community information or leisure”
V3 Online consists of a comprehensive database of relevant bibliographic information and a
unique location service giving access to over 40 million library holdings against about 4 million titles. Full transaction management facilities for lending and borrowing resources are integrated
via FDI’s VDX technology. The system also includes management information and accounting for use . Internet access is via the latest 'thin-client' Web technology.
V3 Online has been in use by over 100 libraries since January 2000 and its prime purpose is as
a library interlending tool. However, by the end of 2000, it is hoped to roll out the service for library end-uses who will be able to place ILL requests directly to the system although staff will
then pick up requests before sending on to member libraries.
ILL requests can be made from the bibliographic database, or created from the templates
provided. V3.Online can use the full ISO ILL protocol via VDX to send and receive requests, with flexible rota building and transparent access to the British Library's Automated Request facility.
Full use of the ISO protocol awaits the British Library’s ARTISO service. Potential suppliers can be selected quickly in the order preferred by the user. Requests can also be made on behalf of a
subsidiary organisation or end-user with a full authorisation filtering process.
The requests can be managed with easy access to each transaction and its complete history.
The ISO ILL protocol ‘Actions’ (with the addition of standard reply codes) enables full control of the rota and users can stipulate conditions for a particular loan. All transactions can be viewed in
detail and further actions performed if required. Requests to non protocol libraries can be forwarded to a fax machine or e-mailed to any library with a British Library code.
Other features include, statistics which can be retrieved showing your library’s use of the system
both as supplier and requester, context sensitive online help, World Wide Web access, pay-as-you-go searches of the extensive and content rich database. Electronic Document
Delivery and Z39.50 searches and order facilities, will be
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Sarah Shorten
FDI Ltd
The Portergate
Sheffield
S11 7AE
Tel: +44(0)114-281-6000
sarah.shorten@fdgroup.com
www.fdgroup.com
Robin Yeates
LASER
The Development & Networking Agency
4th Floor, Gun Court
70 Wapping Lane
London E1W 2RS
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (020) 7702 2020
Fax: +44 (020) 7702 2019
email: robin@viscount.org.uk www.viscount.org.uk/laser/ |
available shortly.
LASER staff created their own staff user interface in place of the normal VDX WorldView PC client.
LASER on-line resources include:
- Full set of British National Bibliography MARC records from 1950 to date.
- DSC bibliographic monograph records.
- DSC Serials records.
- Book Data enriched records.
- Holdings of RNIB.
- Library suppliers data from Askews and Peters.
- Unique records created on behalf of LASER libraries.
- Collection responsibilities highlighted, such as Joint Fiction Reserve and Subject Specialisation
Records on the database can be displayed in UKMARC, ISBD, or in Annotated form
Future pans for the V3 Online service include making a wider use of FDI’s Z39.50 technology to
create “Clumps” - (virtual union catalogues) of libraries with common interests
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