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International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard 3297 governs the assignment of International Standard Serial Numbers (ISSNs) for continuing resources worldwide. It is subject to systematic review every five years and, in 2017, an ISO Working Group was set up to review the standard. This working group took the decision to survey the views of stakeholders including publishers, libraries, and others. This article reports on the global survey that was undertaken, describing the questions and answers about which the committee sought opinions. It also sought details on the respondents to provide context. The replies are summarised in chart form with conclusions and an appraisal of the key issues, which suggest that whilst respondents are supportive of expanding the ways in which the ISSN is deployed, they are less convinced of the need for more ISSNs for any given title. They are split on the need for the structure of the ISSN to be revised but there is strong support for the notion of a "Family ISSN" that would describe resources that are linked through, for example, title changes or geography or language. The article notes the next steps to be taken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on international serials and electronic resource management which includes library schools, continuing education and library-orientated organizations. The article also discusses the awards and grants given by EBSCO Information Services and the recommendations provided by the National Information Standards Organization (NISO).

The International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) has been the standard, eight-digit code used to identify newspapers, journals, magazines, and periodicals on all kinds of media—print and electronic—for the past 40 years. Periodically, the standard must be revised to allow it to accommodate new formats, changes in the publishing industry and information supply chain, and other developments in the information field. Regina Romano Reynolds, director of the U.S. ISSN Center at the Library of Congress, describes the issues that the ISSN International Centre perceives as necessitating a revision of the standard and the likely next steps in the International Organization for Standardization standards revision process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Open Access publishing continues to grow, and it has profound implications for librarians in a variety of contexts. This report serves two functions. It provides background on Open Access publication of scholarly journals and the role of academic libraries in this movement. In particular, it examines the University of Lethbridge Journal Incubator as an example of library involvement in Open Access publication. The report also examines how hybrid journals, in an attempt to provide Open Access publication options in traditional subscription journals, have introduced a new discovery and access problem for libraries. While standards bodies have begun to address the problem, there are still many challenges when accessing open content in hybrid journals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focused on how serials information for journal articles is presented based on a sampling of institutional repository platforms at a variety of institutions. Since metadata on journal articles in institutional repositories can often be incomplete and haphazard, not only due to the difficulty of entering the metadata in the first place, but due to the difficulty of adapting existing metadata schemes to represent a journal article accurately, how can libraries increase the discoverability of these individual articles from a wide variety of journals? By examining existing metadata schemes and how they are used to represent articles currently in institutional repositories, libraries can look for a way forward to better represent articles though adapting schemas, exploring possibilities for standardization of metadata for articles, and promoting good practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Portal to Texas History (http://texashistory.unt.edu) and the University of North Texas (UNT) Digital Library (http://digital.library.unt.edu) contain more than 445,000 items collectively, hosted by the UNT Libraries. These collections include a variety of serial publications such as newsletters, magazines, scholarly journals, annual reports, and yearbooks. Many of these serials are key resources for the user groups of both repositories. In this article, we discuss the importance of serials within our collections, some of the challenges, the standards we use, and how we leverage metadata to facilitate access to serials for diverse global users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important current challenge for research information providers is ensuring the automated discovery of Open Access (OA) content in hybrid journals. We found no evidence of discovery services that are able to systematically identify the crucially important free full-text availability of OA articles regardless of where and how such articles have been published (i.e., in fully OA journals or in hybrid journals). A solution is important because hybrid journals are proliferating and consequently the chances of missing OA articles is real and is happening. Nearly all of the major publishers now provide such journals in order to take advantage of recent changes in research funder requirements, and to be competitive in the new OA business model. By working with a group of scholarly publisher partners and by using standard metadata elements that publishers are already familiar with, we show a systematic and standardized manner to identify OA at the article level. Our proposal is to embed OA-related elements in the metadata freely exposed by publishers for aggregators and discovery services. For example, in the Table of Content (TOC) Really Simple Syndication feeds the publishers use to announce new journal issues and content. Based on the initial results obtained, we discuss the capabilities of our solution, and evaluate the impact produced by our application in the systematic discoverability of OA content from the participating hybrid journals, using an implementation done with the freely available journal current awareness service—JournalTOCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the January 1994 issue ofThe Cornell Veterinarianeditor Maurice E. White wrote, “THIS is the last issue of The Cornell Veterinarian. The Cornell Vet has a proud history, dating back to June, 1911 …” In 2013 Cornell University Library began efforts to improve the “afterlife” forThe Cornell Veterinarianjournal by leveraging a number of disparate initiatives and metadata sources. While attempting to build article-level linking to full text in HathiTrust (functionality currently unavailable), limitations in the metadata captured during the scanning process were uncovered. This article will include a delineation of these metadata findings with strategies (some scalable, others highly labor intensive) for gathering the necessary metadata for creating direct links to articles found in HathiTrust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces that Chris Bulock is the recipient of the 2014 First Step Award, Patrick Carr is the recipient of the 2014 Esther J. Piercy Award and Magda El-Sherbini is the recipient of the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) Outstanding Publication Award for 2014.

The Spotlight on Serials Standards column has discussed a number of different standards over the past few years. In many cases the standards were still evolving at the time the column was written. Since then some may have changed significantly, some have been successfully utilized in the scholarly information community while still others may need continued work. In this issue I will revisit four of these standards initiatives to provide the latest information on each, and, highlight any important changes that may have come about. The initiatives I will cover include: Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources (COUNTER) Code of Practice, Institutional Identifiers (I2), Open Access Metadata and Indicator, and the Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linked data have the potential to expose descriptive metadata about serials and serials relationships on the open Web and allow creative connections between library information about serials and the seemingly infinite elements of Web data. Linked data may also hold the potential to solve some classic serials dilemmas including latest versus successive entry and single versus multiple records for print and online. How do these possibilities mesh with the evolving current state of linked data projects in the commercial and library sector as well as with the Library of Congress’ Bibliographic Framework Initiative (BIBFRAME)? The three sections of this article will present different viewpoints about linked data and serials. An “early experimenter” and member of the group modeling BIBFRAME serials will discuss her experiences and thoughts on future directions. The head of the United States International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) Center will take an ISSN perspective, looking at ISSN’s potential in the linked data environment as well as discussing international work modeling serials according to Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (object-oriented) (FRBR-oo) and how ISSN fits into the development of BIBFRAME. Finally, a publisher from a company that has reorganized some of its infrastructure and processes to facilitate linked data will share the goals and provide examples of the benefits of that project. The two constant themes throughout the article are linked data and serials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As open access material becomes more available across the scholarly information space, a need has arisen for creation of special metadata indicating this open access status, and for that metadata to be standard through the supply chain in order to be shared and communicated most effectively among a number of players. The National Information Standards Organization has recently launched a new work item, the Open Access Metadata and Indicators working group, which will specify a standardized set of metadata elements to detail article accessibility and license permissions. By defining how to tie availability permissions to an object useful to humans and machines, the group intends to support improved communication of this information and affect better use of open access material overall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The speakers discussed practical steps that smaller institutions could take to develop their own institutional repositories (IRs) from scratch using local resources. Yuji Tosaka spoke about the overall context and problems that IRs can present for smaller institutions; Cathy Weng then gave an overview of The College of New Jersey's efforts to develop an IR and discussed the college's MUSE project, a college-wide mini-grant program for working with selected undergraduate students on research and creative activity, and how this internal opportunity led to an IR pilot project. Tosaka ended by speaking about life after MUSE and the still-ongoing IR development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes two serialists who use skills honed in their respective serials departments to show how those skills adapt to the world of e-publishing. The presenters discussed their roles in e-publishing and their respective university presses and library publishing programs. How have their libraries reorganized to provide resources for supporting these new roles? The daily work of an e-publishing librarian was reviewed, including an overview of working with Digital Commons and Open Journal Systems, two e-press platforms. The presenters also discussed funding and sustainability of the programs, and working with open access and subscription titles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Improving OpenURLs Through Analytics (IOTA) initiative was formed by the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) in 2010 to continue a Mellon-funded project on OpenURL quality begun at Cornell University. IOTA's objective is to develop a scoring system for measuring the quality of OpenURL links generated by content providers at the citation level. OpenURLs have a history of failing to resolve correctly, but no method has been devised to benchmark them even a decade after the introduction of the underlying standard. The proposed system would generate scores based on specific evaluation metrics and thus rate providers' OpenURL quality. The system's analytical approach would also enable OpenURL providers to pinpoint linking problems and thus optimize OpenURL improvements. A public OpenURL analysis tool, which relies on link data contributed by OpenURL providers and libraries, is currently in use. Recently, IOTA approached the Knowledge Bases And Related Tools (KBART) initiative about a possible collaboration on a related project, which would investigate OpenURL linking not at the citation level, but the full-text level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on international series and electronic resource management, including information on vendor and publisher services and topics related to library schools and continuing education. The article presents abstracts from several journals including the July 2011 issue of "Serials: The Journal for the Serials Community," the June 2011 issue of "Serials Review." Topics include the awarding of the SAGE travel grant to librarian Patrick Carr to attend the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) International conference in England on September 14-16, 2011, a basic serials cataloging workshop at Pepperdine University on August 3, 2011, and the New York Public Library's (NYPL) online catalog changes implemented by software company Bibliocommons.

The article provides information from various aspects of the field of international serials and electronic resource management. Abstracts for several research articles are included on topics such as scholarly electronic books (e-books) and open source data in academic publishing. Additionally, awards and grants presented by the American Library Association (ALA) in 2011 are highlighted along with notes on the reorganization of the United Kingdom Serials Group (UKSG). Brief information regarding the 2012 conference for the UKSG and a list of online resources related to serials librarians are also included.

The Knowledge Bases and Related Tools (KBART) project is an initiative of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and the United Kingdom Serials Group (UKSG), and has established a set of best practices for the exchange of electronic resource holdings metadata between content providers and knowledgebase developers. The benefits of KBART are that it relieves information professionals from the time-consuming process of actively reconciling e-journal title lists, and addresses the many inadequacies which are common in title holdings lists. As of June 1, 2010, KBART has been endorsed by the American Institute of Physics, Ex Libris, Serials Solutions, and the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). Information professionals can facilitate the further endorsement of KBART by requesting accurate holdings lists from providers up front and referring providers to the KBART recommendations to encourage broader adoption of these best practices. Looking forward, the KBART Working Group hopes to achieve universal acceptance of these best practices and the expansion of the practice to more varied electronic resource formats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this session, Holly Mercer presented a case for finding global solutions to improve the metadata that are available for journals, particularly small, independent, open-access journals. She discussed the scholarly communication lifecycle and described how in her view the metadata value chain underpins the scholarly communication system. Examples of the importance of metadata to discovery, access, and use of publications were provided. Suggestions of how librarians can help editors and publishers enhance discoverability and usability for patrons were also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Kingdom Serials Group (UKSG) is actively involved in key industry initiatives to study issues affecting the scholarly information chain. The Transfer project, Knowledge Bases and Related Tools (KBART), Journal Usage Factor, and the Publisher and Institutional Repository Usage Statistics (PIRUS) project complement one another by wrestling with related aspects of core metadata issues. Problems with metadata transmission and use affect how librarians provide access to and maximize return on investment for resources that are purchased, collected, and archived. How those problems are addressed has a direct effect on how scholars and users access, and qualitatively and quantitatively assess the value of online resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the presentations at the Great Ideas Showcase in the 30th annual conference of the North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG ) held in Washington D.C. on May 27-30, 2015. These include Deconstructing the Core Competencies to Build the Digital Future by Stacy Baggett, Reimagining Serials: Small Steps Toward a Linked Data Future by Kevin Balster and the Impact of Research on Public Policy by Sara Rouhi.

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses various reports published within the issue including "Open Access in Scholarly Publishing: Embracing Principles and Avoiding Pitfalls,"iTunes Metadata and Classical Music: Issues and Solutions for Crowdsourced Metadata in iTunes" and "Continuing Digital Divide in the United States."