International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) Meeting Summary

Beverlee French and Laine Farley recently attended the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC, formerly known as Consortium of Consortia or COC) meeting on behalf of the CDL.  ICOLC is devoted largely to consortial licensing of content but also to principles, practices, and other activities of library consortia.  Thorough reports by Ann Okerson on sessions plus slides from most presentations are available at: <http://silver.ohiolink.edu/ioclc/orlandoapril2000.html> .

Of particular note are the presentations on “Cross Ref” by Dale Flecker and “Journal Linking – Appropriate Copy solution” by Herbert von Sompel.  Although the dynamic, algorithmic linking devised by the CDL works well from our locally mounted databases to publisher platforms, the “appropriate copy” issue looms large when references are from one article to another or from an external database to full-text on multiple servers.  Consortial borrowing software vendors comprised part of this program and are of particular interest to current efforts of the Request Project Team.