The BibP Vision: A Decentralized Bibliographic Service Network

Bibliographic protocol is designed based on a decentralized model of a bibliographic service network.

1. Global services such as those at usin.org provide default bibliographic service if none of the options below applies. Preferences for default global services are set within BibP client software.
2. Publisher or author-specified services may be defined in documents containing bibp links. These take precedence over global services. Publishers or authors specify services through the citehost mechanism.
3. Local library services take precedence over publisher and global services using the bibhost mechanism. This may be particularly relevant to users in academic domains. As soon as your university library installs a bibp server at bibhost.youruniv.edu, it should take precedence over global or publisher-specified services for users in the youruniv.edu domain.
4. Personal preferences take precedence over all of the above using our simple instructions for specifying personal bibhost preference. You may choose to use any library or commercial bibliographic service provider of your choice. You may even choose to install and operate your own personal bibliographic server with data on your own references and holdings backed up by library, publisher and global services.

The service hierarchy above represents the client-server aspects of bibliographic protocol, well-defined under BibP Level 1 and implemented in a variety of BibP clients, Still under development is the specification of BibP Level 2: server-to-server interactions. In essence, BibP Level 2 will specify how information is shared and distribued over the network of library, publisher, personal and commercial bibliographic servers.