Anne Bell

Anne Bell (Director of Library Services, King's College London) and David Whitehurst (Deputy Librarian, UMIST) will be representing the Docusend project at the seminar.

Docusend is a JISC 5/99 funded project and is part of the JOIN-UP cluster1. The Docusend partners include the eleven academic libraries involved in delivering electronic journal article document delivery services for the Lamda service.2

Docusend will contribute to the DNER as an infrastructure service provider by creating a one-stop document delivery service for handling journal service requests which is hospitable to being accessed via other portal and broker services. It will support the DNER's aim of integrating access to services by linking document delivery to a number of JISC initiatives (including those within the JOIN-UP programmatic framework) to provide seamless access to journal resources from resource discovery through to delivery.

The overall aim of the project is to create an accessible, easy to use and integrated journal article delivery service which will bring together a wide variety of document delivery and related services in ways that appear transparent and seamless to the user.

The specific objectives are to:

• Create an accessible, easy to use one-stop integrated journal article delivery service
• Provide seamless access to journal resources from resource discovery through to delivery
• Develop the capability to act as a national gateway for document delivery requests
• Build a consortium of content suppliers through partnerships and links with a number of suppliers including traditional resource rich libraries, publishers, JISC data services, learned societies etc.
• Deliver journal articles in electronic format wherever possible (whether born digital or through electronic delivery of print sources)
• Test and, if feasible, implement direct end-user requesting and end-user delivery

The focus of the project is on developing a viable and sustainable document delivery service which utilises VDX software provided by Fretwell Downing Informatics to handle the complex routing and management transactions involved. Docusend will provide Locate, Request and Deliver functionality which can be accessed individually or as an end-to-end document delivery service. The Locate and Request services will also be built to interface with other DNER Search and Locate services such as those included within the JOIN-UP programmatic framework (Xgrain, ZBLSA and Z.ETOC) thereby enabling document delivery requests to be received via broker and other Search and Locate services.

Our particular interest in the seminar is very broadly based. We not only need to develop our understanding of the issues relating to linking technologies but also to increase our awareness of developments relating to possible solutions and the potential impact of those for Docusend's development.

For further details see http://lamdaweb.mcc.ac.uk