Thank God I'm not still in library school

I stumbled across something I had saved on the computer from one of my online library science classes--the instructor was giving us our discussion topic for the week: 

One of the long standing problems within LIS has been the inability to connect distributed networked systems in a manner which is transparent to the end user. The challenges are considerable. Consider the fact that many OPACs promote access to physical collections owned by local libraries, while Online DBs proffer access to content that is not housed at a specific library, are generally “licensed” for some specified period of time. How does one connect these disparate sources of content for use by the end user?

One early proposal was to create a standard for interoperability across distributed collections of MARC records. Known as Z39.50, what are some applications of this NISO standard, and what might be some future directions involving this standard?

What are the challenges faced with connecting disparate content and unifying that access with a single interface?

Let us discuss these prospects and issues for the duration of the week.

Enjoy!
Dr. K