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Inviting Comment on Revised Open Discovery Initiative Recommended Practice

Inviting Comment on Revised Open Discovery Initiative Recommended Practice

January 2020

NISO Standing Committee Seeks Your Feedback

The NISO Open Discovery Initiative (ODI) Standing Committee invites feedback from the community on proposed revisions to its Recommended Practice, originally published in 2014 as NISO RP-19-2014 Open Discovery Initiative: Promoting Transparency in Discovery. Librarians, publishers, vendors, and others who are interested in how content is included in discovery systems are encouraged to share their comments by March 9, 2020.

Index-based discovery services are now established as one of the main channels through which users discover and access content. NISO created ODI in 2012, and published the original ODI Recommended Practice in 2014, to provide technical recommendations for the exchange of data, including data formats, methods of delivery, usage reporting, frequency of updates, and rights of use. It is intended to provide a way of assessing content providers’ participation in discovery services and to ensure fair and unbiased indexing and linking. 

As noted by the Standing Committee co-chairs, Rachel Kessler of Proquest and Laura Morse of Harvard, the proposed revision adds material that affects content providers, discovery service providers, and libraries. The changes support better metadata sharing (including information about open access material) and record display, improved tracking of usage statistics and authentication mechanisms, as well as providing advice on systems, training, and communication for libraries that configure and upgrade their discovery systems.  Also addressed were some areas that were outside the scope of the original Recommended Practice, such as more detailed treatment of Abstracting and Indexing (A&I) content products.

Anyone who is concerned about the discoverability of licensed content in discovery systems to share their feedback on this second wave of ODI recommendations, which have been developed — with NISO’s help — by and for the community.

The draft Recommended Practice, with commenting capability, is available at https://www.niso.org/standards-committees/odi through March 9.

The open period for comment was announced during the 2020 ALA Midwinter event.