The Library of Congress Portals Applications Issues Group (LCPAIG) is still interested in receiving comments from individuals, libraries, professional organizations, and vendors on its "List of Portal Application Functionalities for the Library of Congress."  The comment period will continue through September 30, 2003.   The document is available at: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/lcpaig/portalfunctionalitieslist4publiccomment1st7-22-03revcomp.pdf

The LCPAIG welcomes feedback on its statement of proposed mandatory and desirable functionalities.  Positive criticism will be gratefully received.  Please send your comments via eMail to:<[log in to unmask]>.

After September the LCPAIG will review the List to revise it, taking into account comments received as a result of this announcement.

The List of Portal Application Functionalities represents the results of nearly one year of market analysis to study portal functionality of particular products in order to identify existing features of such products. The functionalities are organized under  broad headings: General Requirements, Client Requirements, Searching and Search Results, Knowledge Database, Patron Authentication, and Portal Administration and Vendor Support.  All of the functionalities designated as "M" for "mandatory" were present in one or more of the three applications (ZPORTAL*, MetaLib/SFX, ENCompass/LinkFinderPlus) that were tested during  market analysis.  In addition, for a high performing portal application, the LCPAIG identified several highly desirable functionalities not yet present in some or all the products tested  These  functionalities, designated as "D" (for "desirable") are offered to vendors for consideration as they enhance their products. 

The LCPAIG recognizes that the List may not include applications that other kinds of libraries might specify as either required or desirable.  For example, academic libraries are likely to want portal products that can interface with courseware.  In short, the list produced by the LCPAIG is that for a general research library of a large and complex nature, such as a national library.  Additions or subtractions may be appropriate according to the needs of other kinds of libraries.

The study that produced the List resulted from Work Item 2.1 within the Action Plan that grew out of the Library of Congress Cataloging Directorate's Bicentennial Conference on Bibliographic Control for the New Millennium.  For further information about the Conference and its outcomes, visit: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol/

For further information about the LCPAIG, links to portal and OpenURL products and vendors, standards and articles on portals, visit its Web page at: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/lcpaig/paig.html