Evolving Standards for Serials in the Electronic Resources Era Ted Fons Product Manager Innovative Interfaces

Evolving Standards The Landscape Challenges ONIX for Serials / JWP The Future

The Landscape Serials Data Containers: –Online Public Access Catalogs –Bibliographic Utilities –Union Databases –Publisher Databases –Subscription Agent Databases –Link Resolver/ERMS Coverage Databases

The Landscape Common Serials Transactions: TransactionFormat ClaimsX12, EDIFACT, Proprietary System migrationMARC21, varied text Holdings ReportingMARC21, varied text Subscription ListsVaried text A-Z ListsVaried text (mostly spreadsheets) User StatisticsSpreadsheets, XML

The Landscape: Challenges TransactionFormatChallenges ClaimsX12, EDIFACT, ProprietaryVariety of formats System migrationMARC21, varied textLack of standardization of format/data (text), lack of MARC21 implementation Holdings ReportingMARC21, varied textLack of standardization of format/data (text), lack of MARC21 implementation Subscription ListsVaried textLack of standardization of format A-Z ListsVaried text (mostly spreadsheets) Lack of standardization of format User StatisticsSpreadsheets, XMLLack of implementation of XML

The Landscape: Challenges TransactionFormatChallenges ClaimsX12, EDIFACT, ProprietaryVariety of formats System migrationMARC21, varied textLack of standardization of format/data (text), lack of MARC21 implementation Holdings ReportingMARC21, varied textLack of standardization of format/data (text), lack of MARC21 implementation Subscription ListsVaried textLack of standardization of format A-Z ListsVaried text (mostly spreadsheets) Lack of standardization of format User StatisticsSpreadsheets, XMLLack of implementation of XML

Solutions NISO/EDItEUR Joint Working Party (JWP)

JWP Overview What? –Proposed standard for exchange of online serials subscription data Who? – NISO/EDItEUR Joint Working Party (JWP) Why? –Standardized transactions are more efficient What else? – Identifier issues Where is this all going?

Serials Management Mess: It’s All Greek The problem: –Libraries, Publishers, and Publication Access Management Services (PAMS) all exchange coverage data in different formats –It is like saying the same thing in different alphabets:  Hello  ΈΛΛΩ   ЖЕЛЛО

Serials Management Mess: Transactions The problem: –Huge variety of business cases –See: The Exchange of Serials Subscription Information by Ed Jones – sWP.htmlhttp:// sWP.html

The Players Libraries Publishers Publications Access Management Services (PAMS) / Subscription Agents

Transactions Titles held by publisher A-Z lists Print Holdings Price lists List of titles by publisher Electronic holdings

Serials Management Mess Today ЖЕЛЛО ΈΛΛΩ Hello ЖЕЛЛО

Serials Management Mess Tomorrow Hello Greetings Hello Greetings Hello

NISO/EDItEUR JWP Tasks Propose enhancements to ONIX for Serials to support exchange of serials subscription information Conduct pilot projects involving publishers, intermediaries, and libraries to demo ONIX for Serials as an exchange format for serials subscription information

Sample of NISO/EDItEUR JWP Contributors CrossRef Ebsco EDItEUR Fretwell-Downing Glasgow University Innovative Interfaces Johns Hopkins University Library of Congress North Carolina State University OCLC Otto Harrassowitz Oxford University Press Serials Solutions University of Chicago

ONIX for Serials A family of standards for describing serials metadata: –Serial Title Record –Serial Item Record –Subscription Package Record The new standards…

New Formats SOH -- Serial Online Holdings –Used for: Library’s online coverage managed by PAMS –Basis for A-Z List –Populates Resolution Server coverage database

New Formats SPS -- Serial Products and Subscriptions –Used for: Publisher’s catalog/offerings Library’s holdings from publisher – Sources: Publishers Subscription agents

New Formats SRN -- Serial Release Notification –Provides an alert that specific journal issues or articles have been published –Used for (possibly): Automated serials check-in JWP is extended thru 2005 so it can review and enhance SRN

Real-life Examples SOH –Do-It-Yourself A-Z List –Populating Resolution Server Coverage Database (SFX, WebBridge) –Population Electronic Resource Management system

Results of Pilots SOH –LC & Serials Solutions A-Z List tested Link Resolver and ERM Database in pilot Examples of the SOH in action…

Results of Pilots: SOH Creates an A-Z List A-Z List courtesy of Nate Trail, Library of Congress

Results of Pilots: SOH Populates a Link Resolver Database

Searching Bibliographic-level searching –Nothing new here

Practical Challenges Identifiers –Title identifiers: ISSN applied inconsistently Poor cataloging: “this data is dirtier than I thought”) –Package identifiers: CONSER Summit topic Needs serious attention! Lack of enriched data –Chronology: yes –Enumeration: no Publisher commitment

Practical Successes Pilots –SOH nearly complete PAMS Commitment –Serials Solutions –Ebsco

New Initiatives COUNTER Promoting XML implementation among publishers

The Future More cooperation More solutions

Ted Fons Thank you