ISO 10160:2015 is an Application Layer standard within the Open Systems Interconnection framework defined by ISO 7498.
ISO 10160:2015 defines the services for Interlibrary Loan. These services are provided by the use of the ILL protocol in conjunction with the supporting telecommunications service which might be a store-and-forward messaging service, such as that provided by the MOTIS Standard, ISO/IEC 100214; or a direct connection-mode service using ISO 8822 and ISO 8649.
ISO 10160:2015 does not specify individual implementations or products, nor does it constrain the implementation of entities and interfaces within a computer system. Computer systems might range from stand-alone workstations to mainframes.
ISO 10160:2015 is intended for use by libraries, information utilities such as union catalogue centres, and any other system which processes bibliographic information. These systems might participate in an interlibrary loan transaction in the role of requester (i.e. an initiator of ILL requests), responder (i.e. a provider of bibliographic material or information) and/or intermediary (i.e. an agent that acts on behalf of a requester to find suitable responders).
Various interworking topologies are supported, ranging from simple two-party interactions to multi-party interactions.
There is no requirement for conformance to this International Standard. Conformance is required only for the ILL protocol specification.