Noteworthy

January 2011

NCIP Implementer Registry Now Available

The NCIP Standing Committee, through the efforts of members Susan Campbell (College Center of Library Automation) and Mary Jackson (Auto-Graphics), has created the NCIP Implementer Registry that collects information about vendors’ implementations of the NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol (NCIP) (ANSI/NISO Z39.83).

The registry allows vendors to enter information about their implementations of both Version 1 of the standard, now deprecated but still widely used, and Version 2 of the standard, the current version of the standard adopted in 2008. (There is no independent verification of the information provided by the vendors.)

In 2010 the NCIP Standing Committee defined two sets of core messages for accomplishing essential tasks: Resource Sharing and Self-Service. All required messages for these tasks must be enabled for a vendor to claim support for a core message set. Depending on the role the vendor is playing in the transaction, the vendor may either support the messages as an initiator or responder.

By making this information publicly available, libraries will be able to see which vendors currently support NCIP, which version(s) of the standard are supported, and which messages in the standard are implemented. Information on the site can be accessed by several different views including: vendor full profile, by version and initiator or responder type, and by specific messages in the core set for each version/type. Each of these views can be further filtered by vendor name and by service type (Resource Sharing or Self-Service). The information can also be downloaded in Excel spreadsheet form.

For more information and a link to the registry, visit the NCIP website at: www.niso.org/workrooms/ncip

Actionable ISBN Application Introduced in Germany

At the Frankfurt book fair 2010, the German ISBN agency MVB launched an application (in co-operation with the DOI registration agency mEDRA) of the ISBN-A (actionable ISBN). the ISBN-A is a service powered by the digital object Identifier (DOII®), in which an existing ISBN is incorporated in the DOI syntax, thus allowing resolution to an electronic resource.

For every ISBN-A in the MVB application, a “title card” is created: a website that provides at a minimum the key bibliographic data about the book, the cover image, the publisher logo, and links to additional information. the additional information varies depending on what the publisher has available, but some possible inclusions are:

Table of contents
Excerpts
Book reviews
Press releases
Author biography, photos, interviews, blog, and fansite
Website of the publisher
Sources for purchase including downloads if the book is available electronically

The guiding principles for referencing other identifier schemes within the DOI System are to maximize utility to potential users, and to maximize efficiency among established registries. The ISBN-A is the first practical example of the DOI System collaborating with an existing well-established identifier system; the value of each system is enhanced through this integration.

Example of MVB application title card: dx.doi. org/10.978.37657/15389

Factsheet: The ISBN System in Relation to the DOI® System: https://www.doi.org/factsheets/ISBN-A.html

Entertainment Identifier Registry Utilizes DOI System

A new international coalition, led by MovieLabs, CableLabs,® Comcast and Rovi Corporation, has launched the Entertainment Identifier Registry (EIDR), a non-profit global independent registry that provides a uniform approach to cataloging movies, television shows, and other commercial audio/video assets with unique identifiers. Backed by a broad group of industry players, including Deluxe, Universal Pictures, Neustar, Paramount Pictures, Sonic Solutions, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Walt Disney Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Motion Picture Association of America, Inc., Civolution, Vobile, INA (L’institut national de l’audiovisuel) and others, the registry is set up as an industry resource to help streamline digital commerce and simplify consumer transactions.

EIDR has been developed to address a critical need for a universal ID system for all types of audio/video assets in the entertainment industry, making it easier for businesses to search, track rights, and report revenue based on an assets’ unique ID. An EIDR can be assigned to the entire range of audiovisual resources including titles, edits, DVDs, encodings, clips, and mash-ups.

The registry is being developed as an open, standards-based effort built on the established Digital Object Identifier (DOI®) system, created by the International DOI Foundation and based on the widely used Handle System persistent identifier technology. In addition, it uses the open-source registry software from the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI). This flexible, open foundation allows it to interoperate seamlessly with other existing identifier systems, such as AD-ID, the industry standard for advertising asset identification, which is expected to help streamline interactions between content owners, distributors, system operators, advertisers, and metrics providers.

The consortium is actively looking to expand with new partners and participants internationally and welcomes the open participation of stakeholders in international movie and TV digital distribution.

More information about EIDR can be found at: https://eidr.org/.

MARC Code Lists Available as Linked Data

The Library of Congress (LC) web service authorities and vocabularies provides access to LC authority and vocabulary data as linked data. The vocabulary data are published in RDF using the SKOS/ RDF vocabulary and are available for bulk download.

Newly added to the site are: MARC List for Countries, MARC List for Geographic Areas, and MARC List for Languages. the MARC Countries entries include references to their equivalent ISO 3166 codes. The MARC languages have been cross referenced with ISO standards 639-1, 639-2, and 639-5, where appropriate.

The authorities and vocabularies web service was first made available in May 2009 and offered the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), the library’s initial entry into the linked data movement. In part by assigning each vocabulary and each data value within it a unique resource identifier (UrI), the service provides a means for machines to semantically access, use, and harvest authority and vocabulary data that adheres to W3C recommendations, such as Simple Knowledge organization System (SKoS). In this way, the authorities and vocabularies web service also makes government data publicly and freely available in the spirit of the open government directive. Although the primary goal of the service is to enable machine access to library of Congress data, a web interface serves human users who are searching and browsing the vocabularies.

Explore the authorities and vocabularies at: http://id.loc.gov/

Lib-Value Website Launched by ARL

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has launched a website for Value, Outcomes, and Return on Investment of Academic Libraries (Lib-Value)—a free searchable bibliographic database of library value and ROI literature. This database is the result of a three-year project funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

The database currently contains more than 400 entries, including books, book chapters, journal articles, theses and dissertations, reports, presentations, and free websites, covering the expanding literature on library value and evaluation, return on investment in libraries of all kinds, as well as foundational material on methodologies for determining value. The database was compiled by Rachel Fleming-May, assistant professor in the University of Tennessee College of Communication and Information’s (CCI) School of Information Sciences, and Crystal Sherline,
a graduate student in the CCI.

The Lib-Value project is conducting research on value and ROI in academic libraries and developing a set of tested methodologies and tools to help academic librarians measure which products and services provide the most value to the university community and best support the university’s mission and goals. These tools will also aid library leaders in demonstrating the library’s value to university administrators and funders. More resources will be made available via the Lib-Value website during the next two years as the grant activities move forward, featuring materials from related workshops, presentations, and publications, as well as current news.

Explore the Lib-Value database at: libvalue.cci.utk.edu/

BIC Product Metadata Guidelines for ONIX 3.0

Book Industry Communications has issued Product Metadata Guidelines for ONIX 3.0 to provide guidance for publishers planning to implement version 3 of ONIX for books. the guidelines are “intended primarily to help UK publishers in the preparation of ONIX data feeds, by setting out notes on data element inclusion and usage which have been reviewed and agreed by the BIC product metadata Committee and in particular by the principal aggregators of UK book trade product information: BDS, Bowker, and Nielsen Book Services.”

The guidelines contain write-ups for each major element group within ONIX 3 that include what elements must be included (if relevant), what should be considered for inclusion, an XML example, and a discussion of other elements in the group and when they might be used. The “other” discussions contain indications of different usages in non-UK regions; thus the guidelines may be of interest to those outside of the UK.

A detailed table containing all of the ONIX 3 data elements indicates whether the guidelines specify that the element is mandatory in all instances, required for either basic or higher level product data accreditation, optional but likely to be useful to receivers, optional and can be ignored by receivers, or are not expected to be used in the UK book supply chain.

The guidelines can be downloaded from: www.bic.org.uk/files/pdfs/101126%20 bIc%20uK%20onIx%203%20 guidelines%20final.pdf

DRA of Revision of the Specifications for the Digital Talking Book Issued for Comment

The working group for the revision of ANSI/NISO Z39.86, Specifications for the Digital Talking Book, issued a third working draft of the revision in January 2011 for review and comment. This latest draft of the revision incorporates the move to RDFa 1.1; the adoption of XML 1.0, fifth edition, and XML Namespaces, third edition; the adoption
of associating Style Sheets with XML documents, second edition; the addition of the associate attribute; the addition of new terms for use cases; and renaming of the “separator” element to “transition.” This is the last working draft expected to be issued for comments; a draft standard for trial use should be available in April.

The draft is currently referred to as Part A: Authoring and Interchange Framework because the working group also intended to issue a new Part B: Distribution. The working group is now looking at the International Digital Publishing Forum’s forthcoming publication of EPUB version 3 as possibly meeting the requirements for the proposed Part B; in that case Part B will be dropped and the reference to Part A will be removed from the revision title.

The DAISY Consortium, the maintenance agency for Z39.86, is leading the revision work. The current version of the Digital Talking Book standard is frequently referred to as DAISY 3.

For more information and a link to the draft visit the working group’s website: groups.niso.org/workrooms/daisy/

International ISBN Agency Issues Guidelines for the Assignment of ISBNs to E-books

Although the 2005 revision of the International Standard Book Number standard (ISO 2108) makes it clear that each distinct publication, edition, or product form of a monograph is to be assigned its own ISBN, the practice of assigning ISBNs to e-books has varied greatly among publishers and other parties in the supply chain. In 2010, the Board of the International ISBN Agency commissioned a study from Digital Publishing Partners LLC to provide an evidence
base for developing its policy and actions regarding the assignment of ISBNs to e-books. Among the findings of the survey were:

The requirements for e-book identification and description are broader and more diverse than those for which the ISBN standard was originally designed.
The attributes that define a “unique product” are dynamic, continually evolving, and contextual.
Where ISBNs are being used to identify e-books, they sometimes properly identify a product or version of an e-book; sometimes a file format; sometimes, the same ISBN is assigned to both the print and e-book versions of the book.
Many stakeholders seem satisfied with the status quo and have implemented various types of workarounds, processes, and systems to satisfy their own specific requirements and to clean up metadata; data quality continues to be a major concern.
U.S. e-book stakeholders appear to be unconvinced that there is any business case for assigning ISBNs to separate e-book versions (where there is lack of consensus on whether these versions represent separate products).
The International ISBN Agency issued their Guidelines for the Assignment of ISBNs to E-books
in November 2010. They state: “ISBN should not be used to identify files that only pass between publishers and typesetters or e-book conversion services, nor should it identify abstract entities such as textual works (content). Publications need separate ISBNs if anyone in the supply chain needs to identify them separately.” The guidelines include answers to frequently asked questions that expand on the underlying concepts.
The International ISBN Agency is continuing to work with the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) and the US ISBN Agency to achieve a consensus position in the US market on this issue.

The Digital Publishing Partners study is available at: www.isbn-international.org/pages/media/ISbn e-books study public summary 110105.pdf

The ISBN E-book Guidelines are available at: isbn-international.org/news/view/31