Java']Java-assisted Internet document delivery

An increasing number of libraries are using the Internet for document delivery, not only for interlibrary loan, but for delivering documents directly to the patron's desktop computer. This has been made possible through the widespread adoption of software such as Ariel and DocView. Ariel, a product of the Research Libraries Group, converts paper-based documents to bitmapped images, and delivers them over the Internet. The National Library of Medicine's DocView, released in January 1998 and now used by 2,000 people in over 70 countries, is primarily designed for library patrons to receive, display and manage documents received fr-om Ariel systems. Despite the relative effectiveness of such technologies, Internet document delivery to the patron's desktop remains a challenge to document delivery librarians for several reasons. First, the librarian may need to assist patrons in acquiring document-viewing software, and in helping them install it on a wide variety of computer platforms. The librarian may also need to help patrons upgrade their viewing software as new versions are released. Because a heterogeneous patron population may be expected to have a diverse range of computer skills, the document delivery librarian may indeed face the challenge of training this population in using the document viewing software. As if this were not enough, the potential problem of copyright abuse always exists when copyrighted material is distributed electronically. How does a library cope with the potential problems introduced with Internet document delivery to the patron's desktop? One potential solution to this dilemma is Java-assisted document delivery. The National Library of Medicine's Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications is developing software code-named HotMed and MedJava, which provide a method of delivering library documents through the World Wide Web by using a Java applet. While HotMed is software that delivers multimedia information over the Internet, MedJava is a Java software applet that HotMed delivers with scanned documents. MedJava enables the recipient to view the documents using a Java-enabled web browser. This paper describes the prototype HotMed and MedJava software, and shows how they can significantly reduce or eliminate the problems described here that libraries face in adopting Internet document delivery to the patron's desktop.