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NISO is where content publishers, libraries, and software developers turn for information industry standards that allow them to work together. Through NISO, all of these communities are able to collaborate on mutually accepted standards — solutions that enhance their operations today and form a foundation for the future. View a timeline of NISO's milestones from its inception in 1939 through mid-2009.

NISO News

NISO and UKSG Announce Five More Publishers Endorse KBART (October 3, 2012)
NISO and the UKSG are pleased to announce that BioOne, JSTOR, LOCKSS, the Royal Society of Chemistry and SpringerLink (hosted by Metapress) are the most recent organizations to publicly endorse the Phase I recommendations of the KBART (Knowledge Bases And Related Tools) Working Group, a joint NISO/UKSG initiative that is exploring data problems within the OpenURL supply chain. [Read the full press release.]

NISO Publishes COUNTER-SUSHI Implementation Profile as a Recommended Practice (September 17, 2012)
NISO announces the publication of the COUNTER-SUSHI Implementation Profile (NISO RP-14-2012). The new Recommended Practice provides a practical implementation structure to be used in the creation of reports and services related to harvesting of COUNTER Release 4 reports using the NISO SUSHI Protocol. [Read the full press release.]

NISO Publishes Themed Issue of Information Standards Quarterly on Linked Data for Libraries, Archives, and Museums (September 10, 2012)
NISO announces the publication of a special themed issue of the Information Standards Quarterly (ISQ) magazine on Linked Data for Libraries, Archives, and Museums. ISQ Guest Content Editor, Corey Harper, Metadata Services Librarian, New York University has pulled together a broad range of perspectives on what is happening today with linked data in cultural institutions. [Read the full press release].

An Interview with Todd Carpenter, Executive Director of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) (August 28 2012)
David Nicholson, Journals Publishing Director, Life Sciences and Alice Meadows, Director, Society Relations interviews Todd Carpenter, Executive Director of NISO about the organization and standards development for Wiley-Blackwell's Publishing News blog. More

NISO Publishes Journal Article Tag Suite (JATS) Standard (August 22, 2012)
The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) announces the publication of a new American National Standard, JATS: Journal Article Tag Suite, ANSI/NISO Z39.96-2012. JATS provides a common XML format in which publishers and archives can exchange journal content by preserving the intellectual content of journals independent of the form in which that content was originally delivered. In addition to the element and attribute descriptions, three journal article tag sets (the Archiving and Interchange Tag Set, the Journal Publishing Tag Set, and the Article Authoring Tag Set) are part of the standard. While designed to describe the textual and graphical content of journal articles, it can also be used for some other materials, such as letters, editorials, and book and product reviews. [Read the full press release.]
 

NISO Publishes New Version of NCIP - NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol (August 22, 2012)
The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) announces the publication of the two-part American National Standard on the NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol (NCIP), ANSI/NISO Z39.83. NCIP addresses the need for interoperability among disparate circulation, interlibrary loan, consortial borrowing, and self-service applications by standardizing the exchange of messages between and among computer-based applications. Part 1 of the standard defines the Protocol and Part 2: Implementation Profile provides a practical implementation structure. The NCIP protocol is widely supported in integrated library systems (ILS) and resource sharing software. [Read the full press release.]
 

NISO and DAISY Consortium Publish Authoring and Interchange Framework Standard (August 7, 2012)
NISO and the DAISY Consortium announce the publication of the new American National Standard Authoring and Interchange Framework (ANSI/NISO Z39.98-2012). The standard defines how to represent digital information using XML to produce documents suitable for transformation into different universally accessible formats. The standard is a revision, extension, and enhancement of Specifications for the Digital Talking Book (DTB), commonly referred to as the DAISY standard (ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2005(R2012)). [Read the full press release.]
 

NISO and NFAIS Issue Draft for Public Comment of Second Part of Recommended Practice on Supplemental Materials for Journal Articles (July 30, 2012)
The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and the National Federation for Advanced Information Services (NFAIS) have issued a new Recommended Practice on Online Supplemental Journal Article Materials, Part B: Technical Recommendations (NISO RP-15-201x) for public comment until September 15, 2012. The draft currently available for comment includes the recommendations from the Technical Working Group; the Business Group draft recommendations were issued earlier this year. Following the current public comment period, the two parts will be finalized and combined into the final Recommended Practice. [Read the full press release.]
 

We've Moved! Update Your Records (July 29, 2012)
The NISO Offices have moved to 3600 Clipper Mill Road, Suite 302, Baltimore, MD 21211. Our telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, and other contact information will remain the same.

NISO Voting Members Elect New Vice Chair and Directors to Lead the Organization in 2012-2013 (June 27, 2012)
The membership of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has elected new leadership for the 2012-2013 term that begins on July 1, 2012. Barbara Preece, Dean of the Library California State University, San Marcos, who previously served as Vice Chair, will become Chair of NISO for the 2012-13 term. Heather Reid has been elected to serve as Vice Chair of the NISO Board of Directors and will transition into the chairmanship in the 2013-14 term. Reid is Director of Data Systems at the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) and currently serves as a member of NISO's Board of Directors. She has more than 25 years experience in libraries and publishing including past positions at the Harvard University Library and EBSCO Publishing. In her current position, she leads the team responsible for maintaining CCC's extensive database of bibliographic and rights data. She also sits on the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) Rights Committee, which is engaged in the development of a standard format for the expression of rights information, and BISG's Content Structure Committee, which develops best practices for representing book content for print and digital output. [Read the full press release.]

NISO Launches New Initiative to Develop Recommended Practices for Demand-Driven Acquisition (DDA) of Monographs (June 20, 2012)
Interested participants from all library types, publishers, and service agencies are encouraged to contact NISO
The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) voting members have approved a new project to develop recommended practices for the Demand-Driven Acquisition (DDA) of Monographs. Many libraries have embraced DDA (also referred to as patron-driven acquisition) to present many more titles to their patrons for potential use and purchase than would ever be feasible under the traditional purchase model. If implemented correctly, DDA can make it possible to purchase only what is needed, allowing libraries to spend the same amount of money as they previously spent on monographs, but with a higher rate of use. However, this model requires libraries to develop and implement new procedures for adding titles to a “consideration pool”, for keeping unowned titles available for purchase for some future period, often years after publication, for providing discovery methods of titles in the pool, establishing rules on when a title gets purchased or only temporarily leased, and how potential titles are discovered, and for handling of multiple formats of a title.  [Read the full press release]

NISO Begins Process of National Standardization of the 3M Standard Interchange Protocol (SIP) (June 7, 2012)
Interested parties invited to join the standard's working group
The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) voting members have approved a new project to formalize the 3M Standard Interchange Protocol (SIP) as an American National Standard. Introduced in 1993, the SIP protocol provides a mechanism for Integrated Library Systems (ILS) applications and self-service devices to communicate seamlessly to perform self-service transactions. This protocol quickly became a de facto standard around the world, and remains the primary protocol to integrate ILS and self-service devices. Since the protocol's inception, 3M has continued to produce updated versions of it-most recently version 3.0 in late 2011. A NISO Working Group will now shepherd SIP 3.0 through the standardization process of becoming an American National Standard. [Read the full press release.]

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