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The open access journal Communications in Information Literacy (CIL) began publication in 2007. After ten years of continuous growth, CIL migrated from Online Journals Systems (OJS) and a commercial web host to Portland State's Digital Commons (bepress) publishing platform, PDXScholar. The presenters provide brief overviews of CIL and PDXScholar, and they detail the challenges and ultimate successes of this multi-institutional model for advancing open access journals and reclaiming control of the scholarly record. They highlight the content migration process from OJS to PDXScholar, post-migration actions to correct metadata, the introduction of functioning DOIs, and coordinating with both free web and commercial indexers to ensure proper access to the newly moved journal. The presenters also discuss the practicalities and the policy implications of this move, particularly in light of Elsevier's acquisition of bepress. Finally, the presenters advance their partnership as an exemplar of transformational publishing and as a viable, sustainable model for scholars in other fields to emulate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Out of the many Linked Data vocabularies available for use, several have emerged in the past few years as candidates for the description of continuing resources. Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative (BIBFRAME) 2.0, PRESSoo, Resource Description and Access Registry, and Schema.org all contain classes and properties designed for the application of Linked Data for serials, but are not necessarily alike in their conceptual frameworks or completeness. This article examines possible alignments between elements most likely to be employed for describing serials, as well as how such alignments might remedy previously identified issues with certain vocabularies and aid discovery. Conceptual heterogeneity between the vocabularies remains the principle challenge to greater alignment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Librarians from the Galter Health Sciences Library at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine undertook a citation analysis study in early 2017 to supplement traditional electronic journal usage data in the hopes of more effectively demonstrating journals’ value. The authors developed a methodology for gathering comprehensive publication and citation data for authors affiliated with the Feinberg School of Medicine, using Web of Science as the primary data source. Using this data, various metrics were employed to measure and evaluate journals in institutional and field-specific contexts, including co-citation networks, and increases or decreases of references over time per title. These metrics were compared against more traditional tools like Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources usage reports, cost-per-use analysis, and interlibrary loan statistics, to identify correlations and discrepancies. This use case demonstrates the potential value of incorporating publication and citation metrics into library collection development and evaluation practices. [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]

The Deep Dive into KBART preconference workshop provided a comprehensive overview of the National Information Standards Organization Knowledge Bases and Related Tools (KBART) Phase II Recommended Practice (http://www.niso.org/publications/rp/rp-9–2014/). The workshop was divided into four sections. The first provided an overview of the background, purpose, and value of KBART to all members of the information supply chain. The next section focused on the basic guidelines for effective exchange of metadata with knowledgebases, including method of exchange, data format, file naming conventions, and frequency of exchange. The remaining two sections of the workshop addressed the correct use of KBART data fields, first in relation to serials and then to monographs. Through classroom instruction, interactive quizzes, and hands-on exercises, the workshop provided in-depth coverage of all KBART data elements, with special focus on many of the most frequently asked questions about the recommended practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The institutional repository (IR) can provide a system for digitizing print serials for online delivery and a way to archive and preserve serial content already available online. Organizing serial content in IRs varies based on the architecture of each repository. In this presentation, Kay Teel of the Metadata Department at Stanford University Libraries discussed different approaches IRs use to manage serial content. She gave examples illustrating the inconsistent treatment of serials in the Stanford Digital Repository (SDR) and described a conceptual model for serials in the SDR to provide an improved user experience finding and accessing digital serial content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The report summarizes a presentation given at the 2015 NASIG conference. It outlines metadata used by Project CERES, a print preservation and digitization project supported by a partnership between the United States Agriculture Information Network and the Center for Research Libraries. It also outlines metadata guidelines used to disclose print holdings committed for preservation and provides tips on creating efficiencies in gathering the detailed issue level data and providing quality assurance for digitization. Gathering detailed metadata to support the preservation of print is an investment in the preservation of essential scholarly resources. Project CERES can be used as a model for other programs coupling preservation and digitization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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 Protocol for Exchange of Serial Content (PESC) is a recommended practice developed under the auspices of the National Information Standards Organization. Every day, literally millions of journal articles are exchanged between organizations in the serial content supply chain—organizations like publishers, content processing vendors, publisher hosts, database vendors, and discovery service vendors. The PESC recommendation addresses how the serial content is packaged and exchanged and allows organizations to process content more efficiency. While libraries and their users may not be directly involved with the use of this recommended practice they ultimately will benefit from better quality online collections where information is updated in a more timely manner and with fewer errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 resources have become ever more complicated in a digital world, it is evident that cataloging practices and the metadata standards we use to guide these practices are becoming more constraining. Recent developments within the library community can have a significant impact on serials cataloging and may help improve information retrieval for the end user. While the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) holds some promise for improving the representation of serials, linked data principles may further transform the way in which resources and the relationships between them are captured and presented to our users. By taking description out of the current record constraints, serials librarians will better be able to express the relationships between multiple versions of the same publication, and how a particular journal has changed over time. The linked data model also opens up many opportunities for the provision of value-added content to bibliographic descriptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a report of a concurrent session presented by Katherine Hill and Maria Collins of North Carolina State University (NCSU) Libraries at the 2013 North American Serials Interest Group conference. NCSU Libraries is a participant in the Global Open Knowledgebase (GOKb) project, which will provide an openly available knowledgebase for Kuali Open Library Environment (OLE). Results from a survey conducted by NCSU librarians are discussed, which focus on the e-resource management community and their expectations of the data provided in knowledgebases. The survey investigates problems and improvements in respect to data quality. Respondents also commented on their expectations of a community-managed project as well as the viability of a project like GOKb. Future directions and initiatives in the knowledgebase space were also summarized in the presentation. [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]

Automated indexing--using a computer to look at individual documents and assign metadata without a person looking at every document--was used to build an interactive online database to store and retrieve pages from a loose-leaf resource (i.e., a resource that changes state over time). A database was designed and more than 30,000 pages in the database were indexed. Digitization, optical character recognition, and computer scripting to extract metadata were the methods used to assign most metadata. In places where the computer program could not assign metadata, a person looked at the document and assigned metadata. The index was audited for errors. The computer script and the human indexer had comparable error rates but computer indexing spent much less time per value assigned. It is recommended that automated indexing be considered in indexing projects, especially where a large number of similar documents are to be indexed. [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]

Collaboration between Ulrich's and the National Serials Data Program began more than ten years ago. Today the names have changed but this partnership continues to benefit publishers, libraries, and vendors who provide access to electronic serials. Many challenges are presented by differences in the metadata collected. A commitment to common goals and sharing metadata has made the partnership work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the complicated process of journal title transfers in the electronic environment. A detailed look at summary title transfer data from the past two years outlines the untimely nature of the title transfer process. Also addressed are how two National Information Standards Organization (NISO)/United Kingdom Serials Group (UKSG) Working Groups, Knowledge Bases and Related Tools (KBART) and Transfer, are working to address some of the problems and streamline the process. Last, an automated and standardized method by which electronic holdings data could be processed is proposed for future work. [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.

This article discusses problems in the management of library e-resources and attempts to identify potential solutions to the problems. By describing an e-resources enhancement project taken by Rutgers University Libraries, this article points to the importance of providing contextually rich metadata and reorganizing the accessibility of e-resources on a library's website. It introduces how this Rutgers project adopted the National Information Standards Organization Metasearch Initiative to support the identification of appropriate e-collections for metasearching. The outcomes of the project have facilitated a dynamic display of relevant e-resources to library users as an effective way of automatic access to library e-collections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 Online Computer Library Center's xISSN Web service is an application program interface (API) that enables libraries to retrieve serials metadata from WorldCat in a parsable form. The service allows libraries to use a script language to 'mash' or combine the metadata with local serials holdings information, thereby enhancing their Web-based catalogs, databases, or A-Z lists. This tactics session provided an overview of the xISSN Web service, and provided two examples of how xISSN metadata has been used with scripts to improve the functionality of academic library A-Z lists. [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."