NISO Voting Members Consider Work Items on KBART Enhancement and E-book Metadata

NISO voting members have been asked to consider two new work items: Recommended Practice for Enhancing KBART for Automated Exchange of Title Lists and Library Holdings and Recommended Practice on E-Book Bibliographic Metadata Requirements in the Sale, Publication, Discovery, Delivery, and Preservation Supply Chain. Ballots for both proposals close on Friday, July 15, 2016.

KBART (Knowledge Bases and Related Tools) was initially developed to improve OpenURL linking by providing a consistent message format for exchanging title lists/package contents between publishers and content providers and knowledge base vendors. If the ballot is approved, the working group will update and extend the KBART Phase II recommended practice to support individual library holdings of electronic products and to automate the request and retrieval of KBART reports for title lists and library holdings.

The second ballot proposes that a working group outline the minimal metadata requirements necessary to describe e-books in order to support sales, discovery, delivery, deaccessioning, and preservation. Approval of this work will result in identification of the most effective and efficient way for metadata to be moved through the entire supply chain, and address several practical issues in metadata sharing across stakeholders.

European Standardization System to be Modernized

The European Commission announced on June 1 that it intends to modernize its standardization policy. The planned changes will effect the European Standardization System (ESS) and reinforce European cooperation with the global standardization community.

The Commission's press release states that the steps envisioned will:

• Provide greater clarity on service standards and how they can be used;
• Help the Commission and standard setters identify problems and gaps where European service standards could be most useful;
• Encourage more effective and targeted development of European service standards in the areas where they can be most beneficial to businesses and consumers;
• Help remove and reduce national barriers faced by service providers; and
• Promote greater awareness of standards.

Roadmap Industry 4.0: An Important Milestone

DIN, the German National Standardization body, reports that on June 21, Rüdiger Marquardt, DIN Executive Board Member, and Dr. Bernhard Thies, Chairman of the Board of Directors of DKE (the German Commission for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies of DIN and VDE) presented the "Standardization Roadmap on Industry 4.0" to the European Commission. The Roadmap surveys the current state of European standardization in terms of facilitating the digitization of the continent's industry, and describes the standards work necessary to achieve widespread digitization.

Live, From New York, It's SimplyE

ReadersFirst, June 21, 2016; by Michael Blackwell

ReadersFirst reports that New York Public Library has moved the SimplyE app from Beta to public use. Created with "maximum use of open source software, open specifications and standards based technologies" by ten public library systems across the country with support from the IMLS (the Institute of Museum and Library Services), the app aims to democratize ebook discovery and use. It's not only good news for NYPL patrons, notes ReadersFirst: Minitex and other library consortia are also moving toward adoption of the app for e-reading patrons.

NISO NOTE: New York Public Library is a NISO LSA Member and Minitex is a NISO Voting Member.

14 Projects Win 2016 Knight News Challenge on Libraries

KnightBlog, June 23, 1016; by Chris Barr and Nina Zenni

The projects that collectively will receive $1.6 million from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation each successfully answered the question: "How might libraries serve 21st century information needs?" Their solutions heavily feature technology as a way to improve patron's lives, with plans ranging from Brooklyn Public Library's video visitation and storytime for children of incarcerated parents to the Foundation Center's data visualization of philanthropic funding for libraries.

Flipping Journals to Open Access

Library Journal, June 22, 2016; by John Parsons

Publishers face increasing pressure to "flip" their print journals to online open access. Parsons describes a study from the Max Planck Institute on the many ways in which this transformation can be achieved.

Commerce Secretary Appoints Avi Bender as NTIS Head, Unveils New Joint Venture Opportunities in Data Sharing/Services

National Technical Information Service, June 20, 2016; by Gail Porter

In 2015, Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker stated that the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) had a new focus: to expand access to the federal government's data resources. Change continues as the Secretary has named a new Director, Avi Bender, and the NTIS seeks proposals from potential venture partners "to improve access, data interoperability, search, or use of federal data and data services to drive innovation and business outcome."

Simple Online Privacy for Australia

First Monday, Volume 21, Number 7, July 4, 2016; by Margaret Jackson, Jonathan O'Donnell, and Joann Cattlin

"Simple Privacy provides a system for Australian organisations to create privacy policies for the personal information they collect online," say the academics who wrote these Creative Commons-inspired guidelines. They continue, "The privacy policies it creates are legally compliant and easy to understand. We developed this system because small Australian organisations seemed to find privacy policies too complicated to manage with the resources they have available."

HathiTrust at U-M, NFB to Make 14M+ Books Accessible to Blind and Print-Disabled Users

HathiTrust Digital Library, June 28, 2016

In this press release, HathiTrust, a digital preservation repository housed at the University of Michigan, quotes the National Federation for the Blind (NFB) as estimating that less than less than five percent of all published works are available to readers who are blind, and most of these are popular titles. That is set to change as HathiTrust and the NFB have partnered to make more than 14 million digital titles available to blind and other print-disabled users. With user eligibility "determined by criteria used by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped and similar services authorized under U.S. law," the materials digitized in this venture will be open to people with disabilities who are not affiliated with a HathiTrust member school.

My Unpublished Research Was Scooped? Misconduct Reveals One Way Copyright Preserves Academic Values

College & Research Libraries News, Vol. 77, No. 6, June 2016; by Nancy Sims

In many fields, unaffiliated groups of researchers are working on similar areas of investigation at the same time. As Sims notes, it can be "bitterly disappointing" if a competing group publishes "your" findings first, especially if your work was finished before theirs. In most cases, she notes, there is no misconduct at play, it's just the way of modern science. But what if you suspect academic dishonesty? Sims's look at the "implications of a lawsuit about 'stolen' engineering research" describes how it can go.

Shining a Light on Scientific Data: Building a Data Catalog to Foster Data Sharing and Reuse

Code4Lib, Issue 32; by Ian Lamb and Catherine Larson

The scientific community's eagerness to make research data available to the public provides libraries with an interesting new opportunity, say Lamb and Larson. The authors describe efforts at their institution, New York University, to use Symfony2 and Solr to create a data-catalog website offering faceted search and rich metadata.

U.S. Government Activities and Annoucements

"The new law is a 'win-win' for the public and the library community," says ALA President Julie Todaro. "Not only will it improve government transparency by opening the window on the workings of our government wider, but the law also will advance librarians' efforts in making that vital information available to the public."

• On June 9, the U.S. government approved a proposal by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) to assume responsibility for the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). George H. Pike reports in Information Today's Newsbreaks that the approval follows almost 20 years of negotiations, but that there still may be issues; Congress may need to intervene, says Pike, if authoritarian regimes begin to restrict Internet access as a result of the new arrangement.
• A recent statement from NISO Voting Member the American Geophysical Unionexplains that The American Innovation and Competitiveness Act - S. 3084 provides the National Science Foundation with a 0.62 percent increase for fiscal year 2017 and four percent increase for the following year. The Act also encourages agencies to engage with citizen scientists and promotes STEM education.
• On June 13, 2016, Congress passed the Freedom of Information Improvement Act without amendment, and President Obama signed it into law on June 30. The American Library Association (ALA) explains that the Act:
  • Codifies the "presumption of openness" for government documents for future administrations;
  • Harnesses technology to improve the FOIA process;
  • Limits, to a period of 25 years, the period of time that agencies may keep records of their internal deliberations confidential; and
  • Increases the effectiveness of the FOIA by strengthening the Office of Government Information Services

How Much is Privacy Worth to Today's Consumers? Reexamining the Economics of Privacy in the Information Age

American Economic Association, June 13, 2016; by Tim Hyde

"Shadowy data brokers are helping consolidate consumer information from disparate sources, allowing curious companies help fill out their psychological profiles of customers they hope to eventually target with personalized offers," explains Hyde. He introduces work by several economists who each examine whether their field can make a case for rules and regulations that will force consumers to keep their data private.