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DBV‐OSI II addresses the problem of access to multiple independent, non‐communicating union catalogues and databases in Germany. It seeks to improve the situation for end users by offering seamless access to a range of local and remote services, using a SR/Z39.50 application. Interlibrary loan and document delivery will be addressed in the second phase of the project.

Z39.50 is an information retrieval protocol. It has generated much interest but is so far little deployed in UK systems and services. This article gives a functional overview of the protocol itself and the standards background, describes some European initiatives which make use of it, and outlines various issues to do with its future use and acceptance. It is argued that Z39.50 is a crucial building block of future distributed information systems but that it needs to be considered alongside other protocols and services to provide useful applications.

The Internet arrived on the German library scene in the fall of 1994. Until then, libraries had connected to hosts or offered their catalogs, if at all, over networks based on the X.25 protocol. Because of Telekom's monopoly, these services were several times more expensive than comparable services in the United States—prohibitively so for small libraries and private citizens, who rarely ventured beyond CompuServe or videotext. The Internet arose alongside these networks in the late 1980s, first at university computer science departments and in the form of pioneering companies such as EUNet. But it did not attract much attention until 1993, when Mosaic became available, allowing text and graphics to be displayed side‐by‐side and providing an easy way to surf the Web with mouse clicks. Weekly magazines began to carry dramatic stories about the coming Datenautobahn.