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Digital systems interactions have long been an area of work for NISO. Interoperability among systems in our network requires a certain degree of agreement concerning communication protocols, methods, and forms; standards facilitate that functionality. From NISO's oldest standard, Z39.2, Information Interchange Format, to our newer publications, such as Z39.93, The SUSHI Protocol and Knowledge Base And Related Tools (KBART), interoperability is at the core of NISO's work. We are pleased to extend this activity even further.

Earlier this month, NISO members approved a new work project to standardize API calls from a variety of systems involved in information distribution. This project seeks to improve systems interaction and functionality by describing an API framework that will address areas of login/authentication; patron account information; and availability, check-out, statuses, and usage for e-books, streaming media, and other digital content. Starting from a set of specifications initially drafted and implemented by the Queens Library staff and its partners, the working group will seek input from a diverse group of publishers, libraries, and e-content vendors, using the material generated during the initial stage of this project to create a list of core functionalities and expected implementation issues. The working group will then modify and enhance the specifications and begin tweaking the schemas needed within the APIs. This standard, once released, will lead to quicker development times and more seamless integration by and between software parties and content providers, and facilitate better service and digital content delivery to library end users.

While critically important for data exchange, APIs have been at the center of some complicated business and legal challenges in recent years. Earlier this year, a jury in San Francisco issued a judgment in a six-year-long case involving Oracle and Google that examined whether Google infringed on Oracle's software copyright on certain Java APIs. While the jury decided in favor of Google and judged that Google's Android Operating System did not infringe on Oracle's copyright, it did so by claiming a fair-use exemption rather than deciding that APIs were not copyrightable. Last year, the judge in the case had ruled that APIs could be subject to copyright protections, just as software code could be copyrighted. This decision could create barriers to trade and electronic interoperability, because, as was argued by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, while the data calls and formats might be openly available, copyright holders could limit their reuse to only those partners with whom the copyright holder chooses to do business.

Agreeing to, and conforming with, agreed-upon standards for APIs could circumvent the messy and expensive legal challenges that might follow from this ruling, if it is upheld in higher courts upon any appeal. This standardization process brings critical systems functionality into the community sphere and allows suppliers and systems developers equal footing in the exchange of their data and the interoperability of their systems, with fewer barriers to open exchange. NISO's royalty-free, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) intellectual property policy ensures that the API standards we develop and publish will be accessible to all, without intellectual property restrictions. In this way, developers of both open source and proprietary systems can be assured of the availability, functionality, and stability of the specifications.

A public call for participants is currently out, and we expect work on the project to begin in the coming month. If you are interested in participating, see information about the group and how to engage in the effort. Thank you to all those who have expressed interest already and we look forward to working with you.

NISO Reports

New and Proposed Specs and Standards

Announcing New Updates for the EPUB 3 Support Grid

BISG's EPUB 3 Support Grid has been updated, with the organization explaining that users can now find support by feature, use a URL that points to the results of a specific test, employ accessibility testing scores, and more.

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Memento at the W3C

W3C Wiki and the W3C specifications are now accessible using the Memento "Time Travel for the Web" protocol, specified in RFC7089, explains Herbert Van de Sompel, leader of the Prototyping Team at the Research Library of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (and co-chair of the NISO ResourceSync Working Group). This new availability is the result of a collaboration among the author's institution, the W3C, and the Web Science and Digital Library Research Group at Old Dominion University. Van de Sompel notes that, "The Memento protocol is a straightforward extension of HTTP that adds a time dimension to the Web. It supports integrating live web resources, resources in versioning systems, and archived resources in web archives into an interoperable, distributed, machine-accessible versioning system for the entire web."

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First Editors Draft of EPUB Accessibility 1.0 Now Available

The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) has released EPUB Accessibility 1.0: Conformance and Discovery Requirements for EPUB Publications, which addresses evaluation and certification of accessible EPUB Publications, and discovery of their accessible qualities. The requirements provide guidance to authors who wish to evaluate whether their material is accessible, and the metadata mandated by the requirements offer consumers a way to assess quality.

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Best Practices for Consumer Wearables and Wellness Apps and Devices

Released by the Future of Privacy Forum (FPF), this document describes steps that "responsible companies can follow to ensure they provide practical privacy protections for consumer-generated health and wellness data." Such guidance is necessary, says FPF, because although these health devices and apps collect sensitive data, most related companies do a poor job of furnishing privacy policies.

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Media Stories

The Internet of Things

ISOfocus, September/October, 2016

"In a few short years," explains the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), "IoT [Internet of things] technology will be connected to nearly 50 billion 'things' of one kind or another." What that world will be like and the kinds of standards it may require are the subjects of a themed issue of the magazine that looks at safety, lifestyle issues, and more.

NISO NOTE: The Internet of Things is also the subject of an upcoming NISO webinar.

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How Should We Organize the Academic Library?

ITHAKA S+R Blog, August 18, 2016; by Roger Schonfeld

Various management and organizational techniques and viewpoints have been adopted by library managers over time. Here, Schonfeld outlines the results of a study in which he spoke to 18 library leaders about what works for them and what needs a rethink.

NISO NOTE: ITHAKA is a NISO Voting Member.

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How Social Media Can Distort and Misinform When Communicating Science

Elsevier SciTech Connect, July 22, 2016; by Jacob Groshek and Serena Bronda

"A recent workshop about Social Media Effects on Scientific Controversies that we convened through the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Boston University fielded a panel of interdisciplinary experts to discuss their own experiences and research in communicating science online. [...] Most indicated it's more possible than ever for researchers to participate meaningfully in public debates and contribute to the creation and diffusion of scientific knowledge--but social media presents many pitfalls along the way."

NISO NOTE: Elsevier is a NISO Voting Member.

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Text Mining at an Institution with Limited Financial Resources

D-Lib Magazine, July/August 2016; by Drew E. VandeCreek

Text mining is now a standard technique in digital humanities research, but not every institution can afford the large databases that are usually the raw material for this work. VandeCreek outlines options that those at smaller institutions can explore.

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A Quick Tour Around the World of Scholarly Journal Publishing

The Scholarly Kitchen, August 18, 2016; by David Crotty

This lengthy paper is the transcript of a talk Crotty gave at the ISTME meeting in Philadelphia on August 12, which he refers to as a "'state of the union' address, essentially distilling the last few years of The Scholarly Kitchen."

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Elsevier's New Patent for Online Peer Review Throws a Scare Into Open-Source Advocates

The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 1, 2016; by Goldie Blumenstyk

Elsevier has been awarded a patent that covers "an online peer-review system and method." Despite reassurances from the publishing giant that it merely seeks to protect its investment in a system it has created, critics worry that enforcement of the patent will stifle innovation in open-source publishing.

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