NISO/BISG 4th Annual Forum: The Changing Standards Landscape

About this Event

Focus on the item: Understanding the end-user perspective

When new technology arrives, if is often first applied in recreating old structures and systems. For the few decades of electronic distribution of content, this has held true. The electronic articles and books were produced, distributed, and consumed much as print had been. PDF facsimiles of print pages; packaging of journals and books generally unchanged; and print-based sales models. Although electronic distribution of information is hardly new and many transformations have begun, this process is still in its formative stages. In some ways this is being driven by the end-user and their needs and expectations.

The element of content that a user might need could be an entire book or journal as in the past. However, with new forms of discovery and access, the element of content might only be one chapter in a book, one article in a journal outside their field of interest, or simply one graph or chart contained within an article. As the forms of communication continue to change and adapt to the possibilities of digital distribution, one could envision videos, models, data elements, or visualizations as being the elements of content that end-users want to access and use. In addition, how users want to engage with content in this new environment is changing. Increasingly, simply reviewing the results and conclusions is only part of what readers want to do. They increasingly expect to be able to interact and engage with content. Serving these needs creates many challenges for publishers, distributors and libraries.

This program will look at how the information supply chain is reacting -- and needs to react -- to these changes. Exploring the standards issues related to identification and description, discovery and retrieval, as well as use and measurement, this program will provide both publishers and librarians and view of ongoing work and potential new directions in electronic distribution of content.

Now in its fourth year, this program is a joint project of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and the Book Industry Study Group (BISG). Both organizations support, promote and maintain standards and best practices in the information community. NISO focuses on publishers, libraries and the systems suppliers in information distribution. BISG focuses on the book supply chain of publishers, manufacturers, wholesale and retail suppliers.