Certification of conformity to the SBNMARC protocol

On October 13, 2004 the National SBN Coordinating Committee established the SBNMARC protocol Maintenance Group.
Through the web pages hosted on the ICCU website, the Group:

a) defines, publishes and updates testing methodologies and test suites foreseen for the various interoperability levels;

b) ensures the maintenance and documentation of at least one test bed, able to support the above-mentioned tests and to ensure a uniform and coherent data and function context to all subjects involved in the tests;

c) maintains a list of implementators with descriptions of the level of the certification acquired and with references to their websites;

d) certificates further releases of the applications;

e) promotes initiatives for the diffusion and evolution of the SBNMARC protocol, also in accordance with the implementators.

The Maintenance Group, made up of six members representing the state, university and regional components, is in charge of the certifying of those applications requesting it.

The certification requests must be addressed to ICCU,which will subsequently examine and forward them to the Maintenance Group; the latter will then communicate the outcome of each certification activity to the National Coordinating Committee.

Companies that intend to test the dialogue with the SBN Index can address their request for access to the test server to the ICCU Director. They will also have to communicate the following information:

  • Company name
  • Address, telephone, fax
  • Name of the library management application for which the dialogue with the SBN Index is to be developed
  • Name, telephone, and e-mail of the technical contact person
  • IP address interfacing with the test server
 We inform readers that, due to deep budget cuts, ICCU, which so far has borne the costs related to the certification activities concerning hub applications, has been forced to ask those companies that want to undergo the process certifying their conformity to the SBNMARC must contribute to expenses.
Currently the sum amounts to 2,500 Euros + VAT.
For more information contact the Administrative service.
 
The procedure to obtain SBNMARC protocol certification for a software application includes the following steps:
  1. Certification request to ICCU
  2. Management of the preliminary step carried out by ICCU
  3. Acceptance of the request from the Group 
  4. Carrying out of the operations required for obtaining certification
  5. Communication of the outcome of the certification process
  6. Issuing of the certification
As established by the National SBN Coordinating Committee, the Group keeps  the list of the certified implementators in a dedicated space on the ICCU website.
The term ‘implementator’ refers to an applicant that successfully obtained the SBNMARC protocol certification for a software application.
For each of the abovementioned subjects a form shall be provided, containing  its contact information, links to its website, identification data for the software application (name, version, etc.), as specified in the request for certification, the level of cooperation and profile for which certification has been acquired, the description of the test suite performed, and the conclusion date of the verification procedure .
Subsequent versions of the same software must be certified again.

Certified applications