Special Information Standards Quarterly Issue on the Evolution of Bibliographic Data Exchange Published by NISO

Baltimore, MD – December 16, 2013 – The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) announces the publication of a special themed issue of Information Standards Quarterly (ISQ) on the topic of the Evolution of Bibliographic Data Exchange. Libraries are in the midst of moving away from AACR2 and MARC 21 to the new world of the semantic web, linked data, FRBR, and RDA. 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.
In the feature article, Are Current Bibliographic Models Suitable for Integration with the Web?, Lars Svensson from the German National Library discusses why it is important for libraries to make their metadata an integral part of the web and why libraries need (but don't yet have) an agreed-upon model that can draw in entities across the cultural heritage sector. Paul Moss (OCLC) in his opinion piece, Replacing MARC: Where to Start, further emphasizes the need to step away from thinking solely about a single library interchange format and instead consider that "each function MARC serves should be examined independently and may be replaced by a different technology."

The Library of Congress initiated a Bibliographic Framework project (BIBFRAME) in 2011 to define a replacement for MARC 21. The George Washington University is one of the early experimenters for BIBFRAME and Jackie Shieh in the first in-practice article reviews how their participation was a "transformative opportunity" for their staff "to contribute and establish a new standard that would benefit researchers navigating the information sphere." Another national library, the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), is also a leader in defining and implementing this new bibliographic model. Ted Fons interviews Gildas Illien, Director of BnF's Bibliographic and Digital Information Department, who discusses the need for a new framework for bibliographic data exchange, what the BnF has already done to transform the way they express their bibliographic data, what European libraries have been focusing their efforts on in the past five years related to metadata management, and what the focus should be in the next two years.

As an example of how the bibliographic community is addressing these issues, in the context of the wider web, Richard Wallis (OCLC) reviews the work of Schema Bib Extend, a W3C Community Group focused on establishing a consensus within the bibliographic community around proposals for extending the Schema.org vocabulary to enhance its capabilities in describing bibliographic resources. Todd Carpenter (NISO) reviews how the NISO Bibliographic Roadmap project is Charting a Course through a New Exchange Environment in an effort to ensure that the needs of a variety of affected stakeholders—not just libraries—will be fully integrated into the new bibliographic ecosystem.

"It is my hope," states Fons, "that this set of thoughtful essays provides you with some insight into the landscape of new metadata initiatives and is a useful continuation of the dialog on how we can improve data exchange."

ISQ is available in open access in electronic format on the NISO website. Both the entire Winter 2013 Evolution of Bibliographic Data Exchange issue and the individual articles may be freely downloaded. Print copies are available by subscription and as print on demand. For more information and to access the free electronic version, visit: www.niso.org/publications/isq.

About Information Standards Quarterly
Information Standards Quarterly (ISQ) is NISO's print and electronic magazine for communicating standards-based technology and best practices in library, publishing, and information technology, particularly where these three areas overlap. ISQ reports on the progress of active developments and also on implementations, case studies, and best practices that show potentially replicable efforts.

About NISO
NISO fosters the development and maintenance of standards that facilitate the creation, persistent management, and effective interchange of information so that it can be trusted for use in research and learning. To fulfill this mission, NISO engages libraries, publishers, information aggregators, and other organizations that support learning, research, and scholarship through the creation, organization, management, and curation of knowledge. NISO works with intersecting communities of interest and across the entire lifecycle of an information standard. NISO is a not-for-profit association accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). More information about NISO is available on its website: www.niso.org. Contact NISO at (301) 654-2512 or via e-mail at nisohq@niso.org.

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