About Transfer
The movement of scholarly journals between publishers has been an established feature of the scholarly publishing landscape for many years and there is every indication that this practice, a fundamental strand of many publishers' business strategy, will only increase in the future.
While it is not a phenomenon caused by the move to online publishing, the implications of titles moving between publishers in an online environment are far more pronounced than they are in a print world. Indeed, it is currently one of the principal sources of frustration, dissatisfaction and debate between publishers and librarians and between publishers themselves.
Transfer, established in 2006 under the auspices of the UK Serials Group and now moved to NISO, has been created to address the challenges caused by the growing number of titles moving between publishers.
The Transfer Standing Committee
Transfer is currently a cross-sectoral NISO Standing Committee comprising representatives from the scholarly publishing, intermediary and library communities. For a list of the Standing Committee members, see the roster at the bottom of the Transfer home page.
Current Status
The current version is Version 4.0 of the Transfer Code of Practice. Publishers are now asked to sign up and follow the Code and can do so by:
- emailing Sophia Anderton or Émilie Lavallée-Funston
- announcing the transfer on the Transfer Alerting Service (TAS) via the ISSN Portal.
Publishers endorsing the Code are listed on the Publisher Endorsement page.
If you have any questions, please email the co-Chairs of the Working Group, Sophia Anderton, sophia.anderton@bjui.info and Émilie Lavallée-Funston, emilie.lavallee-funston@stir.ac.uk.