AgentSpace as a Framework to Support Interlibrary Cooperation

In this paper we discuss and argue that the agent-based approach is suitable to design and to develop interlibrary cooperation and universal access to open electronic libraries. Additionally we introduce the AgentSpace system as a generic framework to support, develop and manage this class of applications. 1 Introduction Digital libraries should provide several services to different entities. The Figure 1 depicts a very simplified and generic schema for this specific problem domain. Basically there are two main participants: the librarians and the end-users or lecturers. Librarian X Lecturer M Library Service A Librarian Y Librarian Z Lecturer N Interlibrary Cooperation manage manage search and retrieve Library Service B Figure 1: The traditional vision of the Digital Library -- a simplified and generic schema. Librarians are responsible by keeping library information; recording and cataloging books and other physical/digital documents (e.g., technical papers, news, ima..