Welcome to NISO

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 since its inception in 1939.

Information on the NISO Altmetrics Initiative
NISO received a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation awarded NISO a grant to undertake a two-phase initiative to explore, identify, and advance standards and/or best practices related to a new suite of potential metrics in the community. Information about the project is here. 

Information on the NISO ONIX-PL Initiative
NISO received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support the encoding of a collection of template licenses for e-resources into the ONIX for Publications Licenses (ONIX-PL) format for deposit into the GOKb and KB+ knowledgebase for free distribution to the library, publishing, and library systems community. Information about the project is here.

Information on the NISO Bibliographic Roadmap Initiative
NISO received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to engage community conversations on the future of on bibliographic information exchange.  The goal of the initiative is to advance the conversation and identify community needs related to transforming forms of bibliographic exchange.  Information about the project is here.

NISO News

NISO Publishes Revised Recommendations for Knowledge Bases and Related Tools (KBART) (April 7, 2014)
NISO) announces the publication of a revision to the Knowledge Bases and Related Tools (KBART) Recommended Practice (NISO RP-9-2014). The original recommended practice, issued in 2010, provided all parties in the information supply chain with straightforward guidance about metadata formatting—focused mainly on journal resources—to ensure the exchange of accurate metadata between content providers and knowledge base developers. Building on the initial recommendations, the revision includes the more granular, complex issues that cause problems in metadata supply, including consortia-specific metadata and metadata transfer for open access publications, e-books, and conference proceedings. [Read full press release.]

NISO Publishes Annual Year in Review Issue of Information Standards Quarterly (March 27, 2014)
The Spring 2014 issue of the National Information Standard Organization's Information Standards Quarterly magazine—providing a summary of the 2013 standards development work conducted by NISO and by the international ISO Information and Documentation committee (TC46)—has been published in open access on the NISO website. NISO provides this Year in Review issue on an annual basis to keep readers apprised of all the accomplishments of our community in the past year. [Read full press release.]

NISO Releases Recommended Practice on Demand-Driven Acquisition of Monographs for Public Comment (March 24, 2014)
NISO is seeking comments on the draft recommended practice Demand-Driven Acquisition of Monographs (NISO RP 20 201x). The draft Recommended Practice discusses and makes recommendations about key aspects of DDA, goals and objectives of a DDA program, choosing parameters of the program, profiling options, managing MARC records for DDA, removing materials from the consideration pool, assessment of the program, providing long-term access to un-owned content, consortial considerations for DDA, and public library DDA. [Read the full press release.]

Call for Participation: NISO U.S. Profile Standard of ISO 3166 Country Codes (February 13, 2014)
NISO Voting Members have approved a new work item to develop a U.S. profile of ISO 3166, Codes for the Representation of Names of Countries and their Subdivisions. A working group is being formed for the project and interested participants are asked to contact NISO. This proposed standard will transition the Geopolitical Entities, Names, and Codes (GENC) Standard, developed by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in 2012, from a government standard to a U.S. National Standard. [Read the full press release.]

Oliver Pesch Appointed to NISO Board of Directors (January 22, 2014)
The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) is pleased to announce the appointment of Oliver Pesch to the Board of Directors. Oliver was appointed to replace Patricia Steele, who stepped down as a Director. He will fill her remaining term, ending on June 30, 2014. Mr. Pesch is Chief Strategist, E-resource Access and Management Services with EBSCO Information Services. [Read the full press release.]

NISO Releases Draft Open Access and Metadata Indicators Recommended Practice for Comments (January 6, 2014)
The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) is seeking comments on the draft recommended practice Open Access Metadata and Indicators (NISO RP-22-201x). This draft recommended practice proposes the adoption of two core pieces of metadata and associated tags: <free_to_read> and <license_ref>. The draft is open for public comment through February 4, 2014. [Read the full press release.]

Special Information Standards Quarterly Issue on the Evolution of Bibliographic Data Exchange Published by NISO (December 16, 2013)
NISO announces the publication of a special themed issue of Information Standards Quarterly (ISQ) on the topic of the Evolution of Bibliographic Data Exchange. As noted by Ted Fons, Executive Director, Data Services & WorldCat Quality at OCLC and the guest content editor for this ISQ issue, “the success of the web as a research tool has dramatically changed the library’s role in the exposure of library catalogs.…The rise of new metadata initiatives reflects the need to respond to this change and to increase our effectiveness in the exchange and management of library metadata.” Fons has gathered together in the Winter 2013 issue of ISQ a set of thoughtful and informative articles about the work that is underway in this bibliographic data evolution. [Read the full press release.]
 

NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol (NCIP) Standing Committee to Replace Former Maintenance Agency (November 19, 2013)
NISO announces the replacement of the maintenance agency for the two-part American National Standard on the NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol (NCIP), ANSI/NISO Z39.83, with a Standing Committee for ongoing maintenance of the standard. 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. The NCIP protocol is widely supported in integrated library systems (ILS) and resource sharing software. [Read the full press release.]

NISO Publishes Data Curation Themed Issue of Information Standards Quarterly in Open Access (October 17, 2013)
NISO announces the publication of the Fall 2013 issue of Information Standards Quarterly (ISQ) with a special theme of Data Curation. Interest in the topic of data curation has increased greatly as many governments and funding organizations have mandated that publicly funded research must be made more openly available–including not only the results published in journal articles, but also the underlying data. As a result, much discussion and work is under way around the process and tools needed to ensure that data can be made accessible for reuse and preserved for the long-term. [Read the full press release.]

NISO Releases Draft Recommended Practice on Indexed Discovery Service for Comments (October 16, 2013)
(NISO) is seeking comments on the draft recommended practice Open Discovery Initiative: Promoting Transparency in Discovery. Launched in 2012, the NISO Open Discovery Initiative (ODI) aims to facilitate increased transparency in the content coverage of index-based discovery services and to recommend consistent methods of content exchange. The draft recommended practice is open for public comment through November 18, 2013. To download the draft or submit online comments, visit the Open Discovery Initiative webpage at: www.niso.org/workrooms/odi/. [Read full press release.]
 

NISO and UKSG Release Draft Revised Recommendations for Knowledge Bases and Related Tools (KBART) for Public Comment (September 5, 2013)
NISO and UKSG announce the release of a draft for public comment of a revision to the Knowledge Bases and Related Tools (KBART) Recommended Practice. Issued in 2010, the original recommended practice provided all parties in the information supply chain with straightforward guidance about metadata formatting to ensure the exchange of accurate metadata between content providers and knowledge base developers. Building on the initial recommendations, the draft revision focuses on the more granular, complex issues that cause problems in metadata supply, including consortia-specific metadata transfer, metadata transfer for open access publications, and metadata transfer for e-books and conference proceedings. [Read the full press release.]

July 2013 Working Group Connection Newsletter Available (July 31, 2013)
The latest quarterly issue of Working Group Connection provides updates on all the NISO projects that are in development. See the new SUSHI logo, announcement of the new publications on IOTA and the 5th edition of the Z39.7 standard, the new work item to develop a protocol for Exchanging Serial Content, and much more. [Read the full issue].

NISO Publishes Themed Issue of Information Standards Quarterly on Altmetrics (July 30, 2013)
NISO announces the publication of a special themed issue of Information Standards Quarterly (ISQ) on the topic of Altmetrics. Since Eugene Garfield's pioneering work in the 1960s, assessment of published research has been through citation reference counts and the Journal Impact Factor. A new field of alternative metrics—often called altmetrics for short—has recently emerged to provide methods of measurement that better reflect online reader behavior, network interactions with content, and social media. ISQ Guest Content Editor, Martin Fenner, Technical Lead Article-Level Metrics for the Public Library of Science (PLOS) and Project Manager for the ORCID DataCite Interoperability Network (ODIN), has assembled a set of articles that go beyond the basics of what altmetrics are to look at emerging best practices and challenges presented by this burgeoning field. "Altmetrics have grown up," states Fenner, "and the articles in this issue of ISQ reflect this shift in the discussion." [Read the full press release. Go to ISQ Summer 2013.]

NISO Publishes Update to Metrics Data Dictionary for Libraries and Information Providers (July 29, 2013)
NISO announces the publication of the fifth edition of the standard ANSI/NISO Z39.7, Information Services and Use: Metrics and Statistics for Libraries and Information Providers – Data Dictionary. The purpose of the Z39.7 Data Dictionary is to assist the information community in the identification, definition, collection, and interpretation of statistical data used to describe the current status and condition of libraries in the United States."The importance of addressing our digital environment with integrative thinking is apparent in the new standard," stated Martha Kyrillidou, Senior Director, ARL Statistics and Service Quality Programs, and Chair of the Z39.7 Standing Committee. [Read the full press release.]

July 2013 NISO Newsline Issue Available (July 3, 2013)
The July issue of NISO Newsline discusses the WIPO treaty on accessibility; new NISO projects on altmetrics and serials packaging; new standards initiatives from W3C on digital publishing and ORCID on professional society integration of persistent identifiers; media stories on PDF/A, the Global Open Data Initiative, eoncomics of scholarly communication; and more! [Read the July 2013 Newsline.]

NISO Launches New Project to Develop Recommended Practices for Exchanging Serial Content (June 26, 2013)
NISO voting members have approved a new project to develop recommended practices for Packaging and Exchanging Serial Content. Many different organizations—libraries, archives, indexing services, content aggregators, publishers, and content creators—need to exchange and work with digital files that make up serial content. Generally, the files are aggregated in some type of "package" that can vary significantly in format and structure and contain anywhere from several files for a single article to over a million files for a full journal title backfile. This new NISO initiative will develop a recommended practice defining the rules to be used to create a package of serial content, allowing both the exchange of content and the automation of processes to receive and manage this content. Interested participants from libraries, publishers, content aggregators, and repositories are encouraged to contact NISO. [Read the full press release.]
 

NISO Members Elect New Vice Chair and Directors to Lead the Organization in 2013-2014 (June 20, 2013)
The voting membership of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has elected new leadership for the 2013-2014 term that begins on July 1, 2013. Heather Reid, Director of Data Systems, Copyright Clearance Center, who previously served as Vice Chair, will become Chair of NISO for the 2013-14 term. Gerry Grenier, Senior Director, Publishing Technologies at IEEE, Inc. 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. [Read the full press release.]
 

NISO to Develop Standards and Recommended Practices for Altmetrics (June 20, 2013)
NISO announces a new two-phase project to study, propose, and develop community-based standards or recommended practices in the field of alternative metrics. Exemplified by innovative new platforms like ImpactStory, a new movement is growing to develop more robust alternative metrics—called altmetrics—that complement traditional citation metrics. NISO will first hold several in-person and virtual meetings to identify critical areas where altmetrics standards or recommended practices are needed and then convene a working group to develop consensus standards and/or recommended practices. The project is funded through a $207,500 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. [Read the full press release.]
 

NISO Publishes Recommended Practice and Technical Report on Improving OpenURLs Through Analytics (June 3, 2013)
NISO announces the publication of a new recommended practice, Improving OpenURLs Through Analytics (IOTA): Recommendations for Link Resolver Providers (NISO RP-21-2013). These recommendations are the result of a three-year study performed by the NISO IOTA Working Group in which millions of OpenURLs were analyzed and a Completeness Index was developed as a means of quantifying OpenURL quality. By applying this Completeness Index to their OpenURL data and following the recommendations, providers of link resolvers can monitor the quality of their OpenURLs and work with content providers to improve the provided metadata—ultimately resulting in a higher success rate for end users. The project is summarized in a technical report, IOTA Working Group Summary of Activities and Outcomes (NISO TR-05-2013), which was published along with the recommended practice. [Read the full press release.]
 

Recently Featured on the NISO Homepage