Library Technology Guides

Ed Pentz to Receive NISO's 2024 Miles Conrad Award. The National Information Standards Organization announced that Ed Pentz of Crossref will be the recipient of the 2024 Miles Conrad Award, a lifetime achievement award for those working in the information community. Ed is the founding Executive Director of Crossref, the largest open scholarly infrastructure provider globally. As an active champion of openness in scholarly communication, he has driven or been involved in the founding and governance of a number of organizations and initiatives in this space and is a leading proponent of the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure (POSI) that support the long-term sustainability and availability of the infrastructure enabling research communication and scholarship. He is well known for his leadership and diplomacy in building consensus across the community to resolve some of the most challenging issues in scholarly communications. [Full Announcement].

Preliminary Program now available for NISO Plus 2024 in Baltimore. NISO is planning for the NISO Plus 2024 conference in Baltimore, Maryland (February 13–14). Celebrating its fifth anniversary, the conference will continue to bring librarians, publishers, tech and service providers, government agencies, and more to address some of the biggest trends and issues in the information community. The preliminary agenda is now available and the early bird registration deadline is January 8. [Full Announcement].

NISO's Communication of Retractions, Removals, and Expressions of Concern (CREC) Draft Recommended Practice now open for public Comment. The National Information Standards Organization announced that its draft Communication of Retractions, Removals, and Expressions of Concern (CREC) Recommended Practice (NISO RP-45-202X) is available for public comment through December 2. The Recommended Practice is the product of a working group made up of cross-industry stakeholders formed in spring 2022. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation generously provided funding for this Working Group as well as for research at the University of Illinois' Reducing the Inadvertent Spread of Retracted Science (RISRS) project, which has informed Working Group deliberations and decisions. [Full Announcement].

NISO announces plans for two NISO Plus Conferences in 2024. National Information Standards Organization is planning two NISO Plus events in 2024, one in person and the other online. This strategy will afford attendees a valuable opportunity to interact in an on-site meeting in 2024 while also ensuring that the organization can continue to build on the success of previous Plus conferences, which have been hosted virtually since 2021. NISO will also continue to host an annual virtual conference. NISO Plus Global/Online will be held over two days in September 2024, with a program built on proposals solicited from the community. In addition to offering a more inclusive, accessible option for those who cannot attend in person, the virtual conference will continue to build on the growth in international engagement enabled by the shift from in-person to online meetings. [Full Announcement].

Seven reasons to attend the NISO Plus Forum in 2023. The 2023 NISO Plus Forum on AI and machine learning in scholarly publishing, happening in Washington, DC, on October 3, is just a few weeks away! We know that your time is valuable, so here are seven great reasons to join this year's event: [Full Announcement].

Boughida named Chair of National Information Standards Organization. Karim Boughida, dean of Stony Brook University Libraries, has been selected as the incoming chair of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO), transitioning to the role after serving as vice chair of the organization. NISO develops, maintains and publishes technical standards related to publishing, information, and library applications. [Full Announcement].

NISO approves working group to develop recommended practice for operationalizing open access business processes. Voting members of the National Information Standards Organization have approved the formation of a Working Group to develop a Recommended Practice for operationalizing open access business processes. NISO is seeking members from across the information community to join the Working Group, which will address the lack of infrastructure supporting OA content by helping stakeholders in scholarly communications to track, assess, and report on OA publications, authors, and funding more easily. [Full Announcement].

NISO announces publication of the Peer Review Terminology Standard. The National Information Standards Organization announced the publication of the Peer Review Terminology Standard (ANSI/NISO Z39.106-2023), which will support open research by simplifying the communication of peer review roles and practices and fostering greater transparency in the peer review process. [Full Announcement].

BISG launches a new metadata practices study. To better understand the current state of metadata practices employed by North American publishers, BISG's metadata committee has created a survey, now open, to collect information about those practices. The information will inform committee work going forward, with a focus on sharing both the results and proposed shifts in how metadata is managed. [Full Announcement].

NISO approves Working Group to develop Standard Metadata for Remediation of Content for Accessibility. Voting members of the National Information Standards Organization have approved the formation of a Working Group to refine and extend the metadata model developed in the Federating Repositories of Accessible Material for Education project, which will enable it to meet broader accessibility needs. NISO is currently seeking members from across the information community to join the resulting Accessibility Remediation Metadata Working Group. [Full Announcement].

NISO welcomes new board members 2023-2024. The National Information Standards Organization announced the results of its recent Board elections for the term beginning July 1, 2023. Karim Boughida will transition to the role of Chair of the NISO Board, having served as Vice Chair for the past year. He is replaced as Vice Chair by Robert Wheeler, who will assume the role of Chair for 2024–25 next July. Maria Stanton rotates to the position of Past Chair, having served as NISO Chair for 2022–23. [Full Announcement].

NISO's draft Content Profile/Linked Document Standard now open for public comments. The National Information Standards Organization announced that its draft Content Profile/Linked Document standard is open for public comments through May 12, 2023, at the project web page. The new NISO CP/LD standard will provide a flexible industry standard for linking and combining academic, research, and professional content, data, and semantics. It defines a machine-readable, self-describing, standards-based markup format that can be used to exchange data between systems, APIs, and services. CP/LD is not intended to replace existing models used for journal articles, books, data sets, or semantic and metadata schemes. Instead, this new standard enables arbitrary portions of content, data, semantics, and other resources from separate sources to be combined into a single, standards-based format optimized for interchange, search, and display. Stratification of the document into different layers or roles—content, structure, narrative data, and semantic data—is key to the CP/LD standard, allowing the specific requirements for each role to be addressed. [Full Announcement].

Amigos NISO consortium agreement announced. Amigos Library Services and the National Information Standards Organization announced a consortium agreement to provide NISO Library Standards Alliance membership to all Amigos members. The agreement will provide over 500 Amigos member libraries with full LSA membership benefits, including free access to NISO's educational webinar program, unlimited participation in NISO Working Groups/Standing Committees, and discounted registration for all non-webinar events, including the annual NISO Plus conference. [Full Announcement].

NISO publishes new Recommended Practice for Video and Audio Metadata. The National Information Standards Organization announced publication of its new Video and Audio Metadata Recommended Practice (NISO RP-41-2023), which establishes metadata guidelines for video and audio assets. [Full Announcement].

NISO Plus 2023 Program Announcement. With just over two months till NISO Plus 2023 (February 14-16, 2023), and just over a month to register at the early bird rate (available through January 9, 2023), we're delighted to share the close-to-final program with you. [Full Announcement].

NISO Staff News. The National Information Standards Organization announced several staff changes. Lisa Jackson joins NISO as Office Manager, replacing Kimberly Graham, who recently moved into the new role of Education Program Manager and DEIA Advocate, as previously announced. Alice Meadows, Director of Community Engagement, is leaving NISO on January 4, 2023, and will be replaced by Mary Beth Barilla, who will join as Director of Business Development and Communications. [Full Announcement].

Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble to receive NISO's 2023 Miles Conrad Award. The National Information Standards Organization announced that Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble, Professor of Gender Studies and African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, will be the recipient of the 2023 Miles Conrad Award, a lifetime achievement award for those working in the information community. [Full Announcement].

David Weinberger to Give Opening Keynote at NISO Plus 2023. The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) today announced that Dr. David Weinberger, of the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University, will give the opening keynote at NISO Plus 2023, their annual conference, held virtually. Dr. Weinberger's talk is scheduled for 10.00am Eastern Time on February 14, 2023. [Full Announcement].

NISO Publishes updated version of Standards Tag Suite. he National Information Standards Organization announced publication of its Standards Tag Suite version 1.2, which has been formally approved as a standard by the American National Standards Institute. STS (ANSI/NISO Z39.102-2022) is based on ANSI/NISO Z39.96, the Journal Article Tag Suite. It provides a common XML structure that can be used by developers, publishers, and distributors that publish and exchange full-text content and metadata of standards including national standards bodies, regional and international standards bodies, and standards development organizations. STS provides structures to encode both the normative and non-normative content of standards, adoptions of standards, and standards-like documents. [Full Announcement].

Dr. Caleb Kibet confirmed as second keynote speaker at NISO Plus 2023. The National Information Standards Organization announced the second keynote speaker for their annual NISO Plus conference. Caleb Kibet is a bioinformatics researcher, a lecturer, an open science advocate, and a mentor. He has a Ph.D. in Bioinformatics from Rhodes University, South Africa. In addition to teaching bioinformatics at Pwani University, Dr. Kibet is a PostDoc at icipe, The International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Nairobi. As a 2019-20 Mozilla open science fellow, he developed a research data management framework for resource-constrained regions. He is also a member of the Dryad Scientific Advisory Board and a board member of the open Bioinformatics Foundation. [Full Announcement].