Hello,
I am writing you today on behalf of the NISO SUSHI Standing
Committee. In August of this year, NISO issued a press release (copied below)
about a new Recommended Practice on Test Modes for SUSHI Servers. Members
of the SUSHI Standing Committee have a lot of experience in working with developers
of SUSHI clients and have found that many of the development challenges are
tied to the developers ability to gain access to test instances of SUSHI
Servers. This recommended practice outlines some fairly simple rules that, when
followed, will speed development of SUSHI clients and speed the adoption of
SUSHI -- making usage statistics easy to access and use benefits all
concerned.
The comment period for this recommended practice is still
open and we would like to encourage all providers of SUSHI Servers to review
and provide feedback on its contents AND consider implementation of these
recommendations.
Any feedback you and/or your colleagues could provide is
greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Bob McQuillan
Senior Product Manager
Innovative Interfaces, Inc.
5850 Shellmound Way
Emeryville, California 94608 USA
800-878-6600 (USA/Canada)
510-655-6200
510-450-6350 (Fax)
===
NISO Recommended Practice on Test Modes for SUSHI Servers
Issued for Trial Use
Guidelines Will Aid in Faster Development of SUSHI
Clients to Harvest Usage Statistics
Baltimore, MD, August 1, 2011 – The National
Information Standards Organization (NISO) announces the availability of the
recommended practice Providing a Test Mode for SUSHI Servers (NISO
RP-13-201x) for a trial use period ending January 31, 2012. The Standardized
Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI) Protocol is a NISO standard
(ANSI/NISO Z39.93-2007) that automates the retrieval of COUNTER usage
statistics by libraries. The process of developing a SUSHI client requires
testing against the SUSHI servers where usage data is expected to be harvested.
The new Recommended Practice describes how content providers should provide
access to their SUSHI Servers in a test mode so that clients can be set up easier
and faster, which is of benefit to both libraries and content providers.
“We have seen a tremendous surge in the adoption of
the SUSHI standard, especially since it became a requirement for compliance
with Release 3 of the COUNTER Code of Practice,” states Oliver Pesch,
Chief Strategist for E-Resource Access and Management Services at EBSCO
Information Services and Chair of the NISO SUSHI Servers Working Group.
“But many SUSHI client developers have encountered difficulty in
accessing content providers’ servers to conduct testing of their client
software. These recommendations provide guidelines to content providers on how
they can easily provide test areas to prospective users of their SUSHI server
without providing live, usually confidential, data or placing undue strains on
their production servers.”
“SUSHI is quickly becoming one of NISO’s most
popular standards,” explains Nettie Lagace, NISO’s Associate
Director for Programs. “Libraries that are using the SUSHI protocol have
seen significant time savings in gathering their usage statistics. This
Recommended Practice will make it even easier for SUSHI to be adopted by
reducing and eliminating development roadblocks.”
The draft Recommended Practice and an online comment form
are available at: www.niso.org/workrooms/sushi/server/.
All content providers who provide COUNTER usage statistics are encouraged to
implement the recommendations during the trial and provide their feedback.
KMLM List