This paper presents an overview of an exploratory research project to identify, describe, and investigate the applicability of the Web services (WS) approach to access legacy data. In the Z Texas Implementation Component of the Library of Texas (ZLOT) project, the ZLOT technical team has implemented a multi-purpose Texas Library Directory Database (TLDD) that is used as a back-end database to support the Library of Texas (LOT) Resource Discovery Service (RDS). The researchers developed and implemented a prototype WS application to show how a legacy system can be accessed and its data can be searched and retrieved. This study focused on understanding how requests and responses between software applications are encoded in XML.