Summary
This paper considers area of library management related to work with users and communication between library systems in this area. The main processes in the field of library management, when it comes to dealing with users, are circulation, within local fund as well as at the consortium level, and interlibrary loan. The circulation includes all activities related to library users such as their registration and checkout procedures. In the case of library consortium, users are allowed to use collections of all the libraries in the consortium, not just the collection of the library they belong to. This way of using library collections is called the direct consortial borrowing. To enable this process it is necessary to provide exchange of users’ data between libraries. NCIP (NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol) is the standard protocol for exchanging information about users among libraries. This paper gives short overview of the NCIP. The application range of the NCIP is wide, but it is mostly used for carrying out the direct consortial borrowing and as support for interlibrary loan. Implementation of this protocol enables interoperable communication among libraries that use different library systems.

Keywords:
circulation of library materials, loan, consortium, interoperability, Z39.50 protocol, NCIP

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