Libraries and library binders have recognized their symbiotic relationship for many years. Library binders really are an extension of the library. Most library binderies are commercial enterprises for simple economic reasons. The complexity of modern binding requires a large volume of work to justify sophisticated equipment and efficient economies of scale. No single library, not even the Library of Congress, generates enough binding to support a modern library binding facility. Libraries have similar symbiotic relationships with other vendors for the same reason--economics. As libraries become more sophisticated and service-oriented, their interdependence or strategic alliances with vendors become increasing valuable. The purpose of this article is to explain how today's increased dependence on technology demands that key vendors to libraries must cooperate with one another for the sake of their common customer.

Libraries are complex organizations. They must search out, acquire, organize, catalog, bind, retrieve, and deliver books, periodicals, and a wealth of other information to build comprehensive collections that support the academic requirements of their parent institution. Furthermore they must preserve these fragile assets for use both today and tomorrow by local patrons and remote users. The need to provide efficient, fast and easy access to these collections and to eliminate redundant, error prone, expensive work from staff responsibilities has led most libraries to automate many aspects of library service. Many libraries now have automated acquisitions modules, serials control modules, on-line public access catalogs (OPAC's), and access to on-line shared cataloging through services such as OCLC. Vendors such as Carl, Carlyle, CLSI, Data Resources, Data Trek, Dobis, Dynix, Geac, Innovative Interfaces, Notis and many more have become essential links in the library service schematic.

As the world's appetite for timely information becomes rapacious, and as the ability of libraries to deliver this information becomes more developed, vendors to libraries must work as closely with one another as they do with their customers to support the library's needs. Vendors that bog down with worries about competitive advantages will suffer. Those that are the most flexible and forward thinking will prosper.

Although books and the information that they hold are an important focus for most libraries and THE primary focus for ALL library binders, the means of access to books and information is rapidly changing. Automated systems rather than catalog cards are used by library staff and patrons to determine a library's holdings and their availability. In days past, it was routine and acceptable to update library holdings manually. Today it is not. It is too expensive, too slow, and it runs counter to the library's mission which is to provide timely access to information.

Today many library binders offer automated binding preparation software to streamline the complex, labor intensive, and error prone task of preparing serials, monographs, theses and other volumes for library binding. These systems provide full-service bindery preparation capabilities, including recording of binding specifications, storage of binding histories, report generation and fully-integrated machine-readable communication between the library and the bindery.

Sophisticated program design enables the library to capture a broad range of information with very few keystrokes. Binding style, type style, stamping position, trimming instructions, cover color, print color, method of leaf attachment (e.g., sewing or adhesive binding), title information, call number and special instructions are all transmitted to the bindery via floppy diskette or modem.

Libraries may also input free-text instructions specific to each title. These might include the fact that a volume should have a pocket made for maps; or that a volume should be bound in two parts unless it has supplements, in which case it should be bound in three parts. The free-text component provides the person who is preparing a volume for binding with easy, automatic access to all special instructions that have been recorded traditionally on three-by-five index cards, and manually referenced each time a volume is pulled for binding.

Libraries find that automated binding systems cut their bindery preparation time by as much as fifty percent. Binder's systems allow the library to communicate all binding instructions directly to the binder's network of computer-controlled machinery, such that the diskette produced by the library actually drives the machinery that letters the spines and covers of volumes. This eliminates the redundancy of checking volumes that have been returned from the bindery to ensure that lettering agrees with library-generated paper binding slips. When a binding shipment is returned, the library uploads a diskette produced by the bindery. Each diskette exchange between the library and bindery automatically updates the respective databases with all revisions, additions and deletions.

Library staff can produce a variety of types of reports by selecting from various sort options (e.g., reports listing all volumes at the bindery or in the database). Some systems include sophisticated management reports that tabulate statistics on binding. Reports can be generated that tell the library how much money has been spent on binding, how many volumes of each binding style have been requested, what the average cost of binding is, how many extra options have been requested and at what cost. This information can be sorted by library, individual cost center or the entire institution. Such features provide a wealth of information that ultimately saves libraries time and money and improves the administrator's ability to manage the library's binding program and budget.

It is easy to understand why librarians are anxious for their automated systems to communicate. Librarians are eager to take advantage of the efficiency, error control potential and immediate access to information that can be realized through the use of two powerful systems: binding software and automated library systems; but that are lost because they do not interface.

Despite the time savings made possible by the binder's software, library staff must spend unnecessary time and effort keyboarding information that is available from their automated system into the binder's system (e.g., title, volume, month, and year). They also must spend time on the automated system checking out volumes that have been sent to the bindery and checking in those same volumes when they are returned--work that has already been done on the binder's system. These wasted hours could be avoided if an interface allowed title information to be downloaded from the library's automated system to the binder's system, and record status to be uploaded from the binder's system to the library's automated system. The on-line catalog would immediately reflect the status of volumes at the bindery, thereby giving library patrons timely, accurate access to circulation information.

At least one automation vendor has attempted to create a binding module on its own. This module requires the library to create its database of binding information manually, to generate paper binding slips which the library binder must re-key at the bindery and to maintain additions, deletions and changes to the database by means of paper records sent to and from the binder. Other libraries have created in-house systems to gain the advantages of interfaced automated systems. These efforts have also required the binder to manually re-key information and to maintain separate databases with manual transactions.

We have entered an age where electronic data interchange (EDI) is rapidly gathering momentum. Vendors, clients and individuals are communicating business information electronically using a format called X12. Translation programs enable an X12 EDI transmission from one vendor to be recompiled by another translation program into the format needed by a client's automated system. If everyone complies with the X12 protocol and everyone has an X12 translator, universal communication becomes possible. Interface programs are greatly simplified if the data elements to be exchanged are transmitted in X12 format.

Book dealers are already cooperating with library automation vendors in exactly the way that I am proposing that library binders cooperate with library automation vendors. I am not suggesting a strategic alliance between individual automation vendors and specific library binders. I am proposing a generic interface that will enable libraries to communicate within their own institution between their automated library system, whatever it may be, and their binder's automated system, whatever it may be. The X12 format standardizes data transmission and enables seamless interfaces.

An ALA committee called AVIAC (Automation Vendor Information and Advisory Committee) has a Working Committee on Communication of Binding Information that has been working for eighteen months to define the data elements necessary for an interface between binders' automated systems and libraries' automated systems. Representatives from the Library Binding Institute and library automation vendors are members of this committee. As President of the Library Binding Institute, I serve as a member of this working group. I have promised to make the work of our committee known to the library binding community and to solicit approval of the data elements required in a fully functioning interface that meets generic needs. Once the data elements necessary for this interface are agreed upon, they will be proposed to NISO (National Information Standards Organization) as a NISO standard. This will set the stage for the long awaited interface that libraries need.

We have an unique opportunity to provide the kind of cost effective, broadly useful software solution that user groups have been requesting for several years. Library automation vendors publicize a commitment to "user-directed" development and encourage library staff to devise new and better ways to utilize library automation. Library binders individually and collectively, through the Library Binding Institute, support the need for an interface between distinct systems. The proposed interface would do just that: improve the efficiency of the preparation of volumes for binding and keep the on-line catalog updated with nominal cost, time and effort. An interface would serve the pressing needs of the customers that both vendors serve, as well as enhance the value of our respective software systems.

Library binders and automated library systems vendors do not have anything to gain by interfacing their respective systems. They do not sell anything to one another. On the other hand, both vendors exist to serve the needs of their common customer--the library. Cooperation between vendors is necessary, advantageous and increasingly it is the routine practice of forward looking enterprises.

I propose that all library binders, preservation librarians and automated systems vendors work together to make the NISO Binding Interface Standard become a reality this year. This should be followed up by a wellspring of effort to implement the interface protocol necessary to make binding module interface as routine as on-line OPACs. The experts agree that this is not a complicated or expensive task, it merely is one that needs to be pushed to the head of the agenda of wish list items. It is in our best interest to make libraries more efficient and more responsive to patron needs. I cannot think of a better way to achieve that goal. Anyone who is interested in supporting this agenda should contact the office of the Library Binding Institute. We need your help.

Paul Parisi, President
Acme Bookbinding