Tony Barry, Centre for Networked Access to Scholarly Information, Australian National University Library, Steve Thomas, University of Adelaide Library and Carl Brewer, University of Western Australia Library.
Last modified 10 Jan 93
This paper proposes that standard internet email (RFC1341) technology, should be the future vehicle for Inter-library image transfer and document delivery over the internet and compares it with alternatives like the RLG Ariel workstation.
This document will be progesively modified and update on the basis of comments received. Should you wish to comment on this please email Tony Barry at tony@info.anu.edu.au.
An expanded version of this paper will be available at - http://info.anu.edu.au:1066/docDelivery in the new year.
A request for comments on the suitability of Ariel on the Australian syslibs group by Steve Thomas, sthomas@library.adelaide.edu.au. and discussions within the group since.
Discussion at the Australian Networkshop conference on the deployment of internet remote printing in Australia and the creation of a group under the AARNet Engineering Working Group AEWG to oversee it's introduction.
Discussion also at Networkshop with Dr. Joanna Richardson, richardj@Bond.edu.au on the use of MIME with email and it's application to document delivery.
A query by Pieter Botha, bothapr@alpha.unisa.ac.za, on PACS-L about using email to deliver Inter library loans.
An announcement on RLIN-L of new Ariel software which will _not_ inter operate with the existing software but which is still limited to DOS based systems.
Traditionally, proposals for computing solutions focus on the hardware and software components, which may be quite rigidly defined. Over the last year Multipurpose Internet Mail Extention (MIME) technology has been defined and extensively deployed which enable an extendible set of document types to be attached to an email message and readily transmitted between different types of computer, viewed on receipt, and printed. This is an open system. This typing mechanism used by this technology technology has been adopted by gopher and World Wide Web for graphics file delivered over their protocols. As a consequence software to view such graphics file has rapidly been deployed and is now probably available at virtually all internet sites and presumably their libraries.
The proposal is for a document delivery method using the internet and a suite of readily-available software tools for all major platforms using these standards . While the method is hardware-independent, certain hardware components are required (Printer, scanner and workstation), but no specific brands are mandatory and the user can choose to use any of Unix, Macintosh or PC platforms. Specially dedicated equipment is not needed and all the software components can be found in the public domain.
The flexibility arising from the use of readily available software and main hardware platforms conforming to ietf standards provide a system that is well able to take advantage of new developments in technology.
There are still aspects that will need improving in the user interface on some platforms but as this is also being driven by the needs of the gopher and WWW communities so this is likely to be rapid.
An existing solution to the problem of Document Delivery exists in the form of the RLG Ariel workstation, which has already found significant acceptance in the US and Australia. The proposed method offers significant advantages over Ariel (detailed in the Appendix), but this proposal should not be seen as a competitor to Ariel as the two systems may happily coexist, and indeed may utilise the same hardware in institutions with a current commitment to Ariel. This is provided that the new Ariel document type (TIFF with Group 4 Fax compression) is registered as a MIME type and viewing/printing software developed.
The proposal has one great advantage over Ariel. Unlike Ariel, this method is not restricted to delivering documents to participating institutions with identical systems: delivery can be to any workstation with appropriate software, including individual end users. The potential exists for delivery direct to the requester's desktop and could be adopted by the emerging document delivery services, such as CARL Uncover, to eliminate the expense of fax transmission. The requisite software to receive, view and print images is _already_ extensively deployed.
As an alternative, with the more extensive deployment of the Internet remote printing software, tcp.int and with the MIME compliant extensions operational, email messages and their graphical attachments can be transmitted to a fax machine via the internet and delivered via a local phone call.
- Scanner - user's choice, but should have reasonable resolution and as fast as you can afford.
- Printer - user's choice; for a library, as fast as funding permits. Needs to be able to support reasonably high resolution for graphics. This would be the network printer normally used for any application.
pine, Eudora, elm, MH & xmh, metamail, MailManager (on NeXTs), XLView, Zmail, mail, xmail, mailtool, emacs rmail, emacs vm, AMS (Andrew Mail system), Quickmail
Those already using Ariel should not have a problem with using the proposed method - they can continue to use Ariel, but by adding the necessary software to their existing hardware, they can also use the new method.
As a commercial system Ariel has the disadvantage of cost which makes it unsuitable for transmission to arbitrary end users. You can't expect them to have Ariel software installed. You can expect them to have public domain mail software, as for internet use the public domain versions are better than the commercial. Another serious problem is that Ariel is platform specific which in an open world is a mistake.
Ariel has one great problem which still exists in the proposed version. It still relies on both machines at either end, and every part of the link in between, being up and running as it uses a file transfer mechanism. For it to be effective it needs to have a custom store and forward mechanism created for it. Email does not suffer from this restriction. It sends messages when it can, not when it "has" to. It was designed to be very reliable even over occasional dial up lines.
A comparison between Ariel and email transmission follows
Aspect Ariel Email
------ ----- -----
Platform availability DOS DOS, Mac, Unix, Vax(?)
Dedicated machine
required? Yes No
Formats supported TIFF TIFF, GIF, JPEG,
PICT
Scanners supported two when the new Any
software is released
Speed of scanning slow & fixed Determined by the
scanner you buy.
Printers supported two Any with good resolution
Reliability Reasonable Very high
Ease of use Reports vary Skills required to use
email and print.
Cost Yes Nil
Alternative software
available No Yes
Paper size Limited. A4 coming Whatever you
normally use
Userbase Few hundred Hundreds of
hosts thousands of hosts
5 Jan 1993