Patent ID: 8504536

Claim:
In a digital library environment, a method of providing electronic library resources, the method comprising: at a centralized electronic resource system, obtaining metadata about one or more electronic library resources from a plurality of different library resource publishers, the metadata defining locations of the electronic library resources; at the centralized electronic resource system, normalizing the metadata to a standardized format appropriate for a plurality of library resource systems; at the centralized electronic resource system, providing a user with a consistent interface to show the user content available from the plurality of different library resource publishers regardless of the publisher actually having a particular resource; at the centralized electronic resource system, receiving a request from the user at the consistent interface for the one or more electronic resources, wherein the request is in a format appropriate for the centralized electronic resource system, but not appropriate for the publisher having the one or more electronic library resources; at the centralized electronic resource system, converting the request from the user to a format and protocol appropriate for the publisher having the one or more electronic library resources; at the centralized electronic resource system using the converted request, obtaining the one or more electronic library resources; and the centralized electronic resource system providing the one or more electronic library resources to the user.