SOPAC, Koha and WS

WS stands for Web Services: means to send requests to a web application (such as a library system) not from the User Interface, but through a connection from one application to the other. Or : it's not a patron using your ILS through the OPAC, it's a web site fetching data from your ILS using an application to application connection.

We have a new intern at BibLibre: Jean-André Santoni will be with us for 2 months working on a connector from SOPAC to Koha. SOPAC is a Drupal module aiming to replace your OPAC. For that to work, Drupal (SOPAC) has to talk to Koha.

That's what Jean-André is working on : it gets them to talk and understand each other. And thus he develops the web services that where so far lacking from Koha. For example, a web service which will tell you the number of available items for a given record. You Drupal site will use a record, send a request to Koha with the information available for the record, using this web service; and Koha will respond with an XML stream containing, among other things, this information : how many items are available. See screenshot below.

Among other web services, Koha can also send back a patron's informations.

Beyond this connector, this is an interesting project because :

• the web services from Koha will be used by SOPAC but also, possibly, by many other programs and web sites
• working on a set of Koha web services for SOPAC allows us to test a first state of things as far as web services are concerned, and to take a first, big step towards implementing the DLF Discovery Interface recommandation
• we can best see what SOPAC can do... and what it can't; and so what we might be able to do to help improve it

So... to be continued. Meanwhile, if you want to see SOPAC in action, go to http://www.darienlibrary.org/