Prospero is a mostly-gone-but-not-forgotten ILL/DD toolkit that ran into, um, *ahem* problems with its 2.0 release. If you sift through the history of posts here about Prospero, you'll find more details about how it evolved, but not a copy of the software. Attached to this post is a copy of the 1.40 release, for the completist library hacker in your ilfe.

Ian writes: "OpenRequest, the pure java toolkit for projects, developers and organisations wishing to quickly implement the ISO 10161 (ILL) document interlending protocol, is available. Please feel free to download, play and get in touch. 1.0.4 includes extended support for more ILL extensions, many bugfixes, improvements in deployment options and lots more."

Ian writes: "Open Request 1.0.0 is a pure java toolkit for developers, systems integrators and organisations needing access to ISO ILL and other interlendng protocols in a java (Or other enterprise) environment who do not wish to write their own implementations. This release fixes a number of bugs and adds minor improvements to the 1.0.0 rc1 release. Read more about this release and download the code/binaries at the Developer Site."

Ian writes: "Hi All. A brief note that a first beta release of Open Request is available for download. Open Request is a pure java toolkit for developers wishing to implement the ISO 10161 Inter Library Loans protocol. The current release features helpers for constructing all protocol messages, encoders and decoders for the full protocol and components that store all incoming and outgoing messages in the database. Extensive use is made of the Hibernate project to provide as much database independence as possible. This initial release is provided mainly for feedback. We hope to integrate the open source component of OpenRequest with our cross searching z39.50 toolkit JZKit in the near future. As always, we are on the lookout for anyone interested in collaborative projects..." This is great news, something many of us have been looking/hoping for for some time now.

Prospero 2.0 builds upon the success of previous version has grown to become a self-contained Internet Document Delivery (IDD) system. As an IDD client, Prospero 2.0 allows libraries to use the Internet to exchange high quality ILL documents. As in all previous versions, Prospero 2.0 still allows direct to patron delivery.

Built on the same protocols and specifications on which Ariel was built, Prospero 2.0 can send and receive documents not only from other Prospero workstations, but also from Ariel. Together, Prospero and Ariel create the foundation of a developing Internet Document Delivery (IDD) network.

Prospero 2.0 also supports: basic firewall support by proxy, SMTP server authentication, and a basic scanned image editor. For a list of features, a FAQ, or to download Prospero 2.0 please visit the Prospero site.

The new version recognizes Ariel 3.0 files Prospero cannot handle and provides a proper warning. A later version of Prospero will handle these properly; for more info see bones.med.ohio-state.edu/prospero. (sorry for the delayed post)

Craighton writes about three new packages from Olivet Nazarene University Benner Library, all of which are available on their Open Source Projects page:

The Web Access Reserve Program (WARP) is a Perl script that will organize electronic reserve files by professor name and class number, and make uploading files to the web server a click and drag operation.

ILLWizard 1.0 is an ISO-10161-compliant, OCLC-Direct-Request-compatible ILL Web form that is easily customizable by non-technical librarians. This Java applet can be customized by changing the program parameters in the html file.

Joe's ILL OCLC Macro Language macros will move the data in interlibrary loan email requests from email into OCLC ILL module workforms in Passport software.

Eric writes: "To subscribe to the new Prospero email discussion list go to : auto.med.ohio-state.edu/mailman/listinfo/prospero. A Web archive is also available at auto.med.ohio-state.edu/pipermail/prospero." Judging by the traffic already on the list it looks like this will be even more useful than the webboard.

Eric writes: "Prospero 1.36 includes modified server side scripts. In addition to merging the login.pl and getdoc.pl files, the program now uses session cookies to keep track of authentication. This eliminates the insecure combination of the GET method and usage of crypt() in login.pl. Problems with IE not being able to view documents have been fixed. Conversion of Ariel documents that don't include the NMPG GEDI tag (ie. CISTI documents) has also been fixed."

Eric writes in: "The Prospero project is the recepient of the 2000 Frank Bradway Rogers Information Advancement Award. The award was presented on May 9th by the Medical Library Association at the association's annual meeting, held in Vancouver, BC, Canada. The award is sponsored by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI).

In a presentation about Prospero given later in the conference, Eric Schnell publicly thanked ALL of the developers who have contributed to the project."

Wooh-hooh! Congratulations Eric, and Eric, and everyone else involved. You really earned this one with your commitment to supporting and improving Prospero for the whole community. If anyone still questions whether free software could really have an impact in libraries, tell them all about Eric et al. Btw the MLA Rogers Award page will be updated soon I hope... :)