NASIG Newsletter

22nd CONFERENCE
STRATEGY SESSION

Tumbling Dice: Publishers, Aggregators and ERM
Sandra Hurd, Director of Strategic Markets, Innovative Interfaces, Inc.; Kathy Klemperer, Library and Information Systems Consulting; Linda Miller, Library of Congress
Reported by Sanjeet Mann

At this information-packed session, a trio of speakers introduced current Electronic Data Interchange, EDI, metadata standards for describing electronic resources; discussed the workflow challenges that EDI aims to resolve; and offered examples of practical EDI implementation at the Library of Congress.

Sandy Hurd began the session by contrasting the serials business cycle before and after the introduction of EDI. Librarians, publishers and subscription agents continue to interact, and the basic tasks of ordering, invoicing, dispatching, claiming and responding to access problems are still relevant. However, maintaining access to remotely owned resources requires complex troubleshooting, license management and the collection and calculation of cost-per-use data. Hurd went on to discuss the new service; financial, contractual and management responsibilities of publishers and librarians; and offered a basic taxonomy of electronic resources.

Kathy Klemperer defined four types of metadata standards for e-resources management: encoding standards, XML, Z39; communication protocols, HTTP, FTP; content rules, COUNTER, AACR2; and metadata communication formats, ONIX, SUSHI, MARC21. She then delved into ONIX, a family of XML-based rules for communicating information about serials products and subscriber information. Klemperer then discussed two important metadata formats: Serial Online Holdings, SOH; which allows libraries to receive detailed coverage statements from content providers, and Serial Release Notification, SRN; which can alert libraries to upcoming new issues. Klemperer also described ONIX Publication Licenses, ONIX PL, and a new standard to encode useful licensing information so that it can be loaded directly into an ERMS. Finally, she addressed the role of EDI in promoting interoperable use statistics.  COUNTER provides a common definition of e-resource usage, and SUSHI is an XML-based standard that allows usage data to be automatically harvested. Klemperer emphasized that for these statistics to be reliable, publishers must support the generation of COUNTER- and SUSHI-compliant usage data.

Linda Miller underscored the need for a more robust implementation of these metadata formats. She noted that resistance from various parties is a larger obstacle to EDI than inherent technical limitations. Miller demonstrated several idiosyncrasies in the Library of Congress’s e-journal holdings enumeration that could be resolved by closer standards implementation.  According to Miller, the skill sets of future serialists should include license negotiation, file loading techniques, market knowledge, and understanding what makes MARC and authority records suitable for copying. Finally, Miller provided her own wish list for the future of EDI in which all vendors reported SUSHI-compliant use statistics; publication management systems, PAMs, adopted ONIX SOH to give complete holdings enumeration; and widespread use of ONIX PL allowed librarians to easily interpret license terms.