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Relais Addon Overview

About Relais​

Relais was acquired by OCLC in 2017 as a consortial borrowing service. The Relais service Atlas supports is Discover to Delivery or D2D. Each consortium has its own discovery interface, similar to a library catalog. The current most version of Discovery is version 3.0 which was released in 2018.

Who is using which addons?​

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There are several libraries that are members of more than one consortia. To handle the workflow, these locations already have routing rules in place to determine which Relais addons the requests are sent to first.

Point of Contact for the consortium:

  • UBorrow - Kurt Munson and David Larson
UBorrow

B1G Academic Alliance (formerly CIC)

  • University of Illinois

  • Indiana University

  • University of Iowa

  • University of Maryland

  • University of Michigan

  • Michigan State University

  • University of Minnesota

  • University of Nebraska-Lincoln

  • Ohio State University

  • Pennsylvania State University

  • Purdue University

  • Rutgers University-New Brunswick

  • University of Wisconsin-Madison

ILLiad & Relais Integration​

ILLiad supports the Relais integration through client and server addons for UBorrow.

Client Addon​

  • The addons determine availability within the consortium.
  • Utilizes a lending string to route the request. The lending string id is contained within each item's URL. See the sample lending string highlighted in yellow below:
https://bdtest.relais-host.com/dws/incrementRequest?SS=BROWN&shelvingLocation=ORWIG&targetURL=https://requests.lib.uchicago.edu/illiad/illiad.dll/OpenURL%3Fsid%3DUBorrow%26genre%3Dautomated%26rfe_dat%3D982650521%26HeldLocally%3DN%26callno%3D1-SIZE%20ML420.B754%20O54%202017%26loc%3DORWIG%26LO%3DRBN%2CPAU%26rft.title%3DWhen%2520Ziggy%2520played%2520the%2520Marquee%2520-%2520David%2520Bowie%2527s%2520last%2520performance%2520as%2520Ziggy%2520Stardust%26rft.aufirst%3DO%2527Neill%26rft.aulast%3DTerry%26rft.isbn%3D9781851498666%26rft.isbn%3D1851498664%26rft.date%3D%25C2%25A92017

Server Addons​

The server addons handle requests from both patrons and library staff.

Patron Requests-

Once the patron has clicked the item request link in the web, the server addon(s) will perform the following actions:

  1. Performs a FindItem API call (the Relais API method used to perform searches within the consortia).
  2. Sends the unique id or tag within the URL to the Relais addon.
  3. Moves the request to Awaiting OCLC Sending queue.

For information on the Awaiting OCLC Sending queue, see Routing Direct OCLC Requests with a Predefined Lending String.

Library Staff Requests-

Library staff can request an item within ILLiad via the Relais addon. In this case, the server addon(s) will perform the following actions:

  1. Performs a RequestItem call.
  2. Moves the request to Awaiting OCLC Sending queue.

Relais Server Addon​

Used by FindDWS and for Lending Processing.

  • Consists of two server addons:
    • FindItem addon- searches to see if the item is available locally or within the list of participating consortia libraries.
    • Lending addon- once the item has been found, the addon pulls in and formats the lending string.
  • Utilizes an OCLC style workflow.
  • A load leveler is used to determine which libraries within the consortia receive requests and when. This method will ensure one library isn't receiving all the requests.