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<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>NISO
Launches New Open Discovery Initiative to Develop Standards and Recommended
Practices for Library Discovery Services Based on Indexed Search<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>The
National Information Standards Organization (NISO) voting members have approved
a new Open Discovery Initiative work item to develop standards and recommended
practices for next generation library discovery services. Using an aggregated
index search of a wide range of resources, licensed and free, from multiple
providers, these discovery services have the ability to deliver more
sophisticated services with instant performance, compared to the federated
search techniques previously used.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>“Marshall
Breeding (Director for Innovative Technologies and Research</span><span
lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>, Vanderbilt
University), Jenny Walker (Consultant for Ex Libris), and I hosted an</span><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> Open Discovery
Initiative invitational meeting at the ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans in
June 2011," stated </span><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Oren Beit-Arie </span><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Chief Strategy Officer at Ex Libris.
"We wanted to gauge interest in exploring the issues encountered with
these new discovery services and in pursuing more formal standards or best
practices for information providers to provide content to discovery services.
We received an overwhelmingly positive response from stakeholders, which led
the group to bring the project forward to NISO." <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>"Libraries
increasingly rely on index-based discovery services as their strategic
interfaces through which patrons gain access to the rapid </span><span
lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>growing
breadth of information that may be available to them," states Walker.
"They expect their uniquely licensed and purchased electronic content to
be made available within the discovery service of their choice. But it is often
not clear which resources are available, which are indexed in full text or by
citations only, or both, and whether the metadata derives from aggregated
databases or directly through the full-text."<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>"The
scope of discovery interfaces is broader than what is managed in the integrated
library system," explains Breeding. "These services can include other
local repositories and digital collections and the electronic resources in
subscription information content products. </span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>We'd like to see </span><span lang=EN-GB
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>a consistent
vocabulary regarding all the elements involved, that there be clarity in the
business rules that apply to the content once indexed, and that there be clear
descriptors regarding the extent of indexing performed for each item or
collection of content and the level of availability of the content."<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>"NISO
is very pleased to bring together the stakeholders in open
discovery—libraries, information providers and discovery
providers—to develop consensus standards or recommended practices on how
to make these services more effective for all involved, and ultimately, for the
end user," states Todd Carpenter, NISO Managing Director. "Other
areas of interest for the new Open Discovery Initiative may include a standard
exchange of data describing what rights to the content apply within the
discovery service and a standard approach to exchanging data in support of
usage reports."<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Individuals
interested in participating in this working group should contact Nettie Lagace
(<a href="mailto:nlagace@niso.org"><span style='color:windowtext'>nlagace@niso.org</span></a>).
An interest group list for this project (<a
href="mailto:opendiscoveryinfo@list.niso.org"><span style='color:windowtext'>opendiscoveryinfo@list.niso.org</span></a>)
will be available for those who would like to receive updates on the Working
Group's progress and provide feedback to the group on its work. Information on
how to subscribe is available at <a href="http://www.niso.org/lists/"><span
style='color:windowtext'>www.niso.org/lists/</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
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