Gaëlle Béquet, Director of ISSN International Centre, and Nathalie Cornic, Head of Metadata and Technical Coordination of the ISSN Network, participated in the first ISNI Library Sector Open Meeting held on 28th October 2021. Organized by the ISNI Library Sector Steering Group, the aim of the meeting was to coordinate the ISNI library-focused community as a forum for understanding library priorities for the ISNI standard, and to identify tangible actions that can move members jointly toward accomplishing shared goals. The areas of  interest identified included technical improvements on APIs and de-duplication of ISNIs; documentation on matching rules; sharing best practices and workflows, such as the use of ISNIs in authority control; and opportunities for member collaboration.

Gaëlle Béquet, Director of ISSN Internatinal Centre, is participating in this group led by Knowledge Exchange representatives Frank Manista (Jisc) and Josefine Nordling (CSC).

Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) and their infrastructures are of significant strategic importance to research. To better understand what is needed to build and exploit a well-functioning PID infrastructure for research, Knowledge Exchange(KE) is conducting an in-depth investigation on PIDs, with the aim of producing recommendations for those stakeholders involved. A scoping document was written in June 2021 by experts of the Task & Finish Group for PIDs Risks and Trust.

This paper considers options for adding new subfields to the existing field 856 (Electronic Location and Access) in order to establish a subfield for persistent identifiers (PIDs): ARK, DOI, Handle and URN; also to allow separation of functional and dead URL addresses including valid and confirmed Web archive addresses for the latter. The paper also provides a place for indicating date ranges for relevant archived content. Finally, this paper explains the need for specifying file formats for archived content more precisely. This can be accomplished by making 856 $q repeatable.

Portico reviews the expansion of its digital archive with a focus on special library collections, under-represented archive content and complex content that contains dynamic elements. Portico is embarking on a new project called Embedding Preservability and developing a new text and data analysis service named Constellate, in cooperation with ITHAKA.

Cette conférence organisée par la Bibliothèque nationale de France a eu lieu le 3 décembre 2021. La journée s’est articulée autour de l’entité « Expression » dans le modèle IFLA LRM et RDA-FR et la présentation d’outils mis à disposition des bibliothèques pour avancer dans la Transition bibliographique. La matinée a proposé une exploration de l’entité « Expression » à travers des exemples de mise en application avant d’aborder le versant plus technique et normatif de cette entité. L’après-midi s’est élargi aux outils et aux acteurs de la Transition bibliographique. Les vidéos et présentations sont en ligne sur la chaîne Youtube de la BnF.

This conference organised by the National library of France took place on 3 December 2021. The day was structured around the “Expression” entity in the IFLA LRM and RDA-FR model and the presentation of tools made available to libraries to advance in the Bibliographic Transition. The morning session explored the “Expression” entity through examples of its application before tackling the more technical and normative side of this entity. The afternoon session focused on the tools and groups of the Bibliographic Transition. The videos and presentations are online on the BnF’s Youtube channel.

Historical newspapers are an important resource for academic research in various disciplines – particularly in Germany, where the newspaper sector is and always has been particularly diverse and prolific. The large-scale digitisation, full-text cataloguing and provision of online access to historical newspapers is an important desideratum. The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) has set up funding programmes in 2018 and 2019 to support this work. The Deutsche Zeitungsportal went online in October 2021 with almost 600,000 issues.

Lisa Landes, project manager for the German Digital Library (DDB), speaks about the German Newspaper Portal.

La création de services partagés par les pays des Balkans occidentaux contribuent au rapprochement des professionnels et à la prise de conscience de leur histoire commune. Ces services leur permettent de collaborer dans trois domaines principaux : l’automatisation des tâches, y compris du catalogage, grâce au système commun Cobiss, la promotion des thèses de doctorat, et la valorisation de leur patrimoine documentaire numérisé via une bibliothèque numérique mutualisée.

The creation of shared services by the Western Balkan countries is helping to bring professionals closer together and to become aware of their common history. These services allow them to collaborate in three main areas: the automation of tasks, including cataloguing, thanks to the common Cobiss system, the promotion of doctoral theses, and the enhancement of their digitized documentary heritage via a shared digital library.

The recently published OCLC Research report series Research Information Management in the United States documents the RIM practices at 6 universities. A key finding is that the library is an essential stakeholder in enterprise RIM practices. Librarians possess extensive expertise in publications metadata, which is an institutional asset. The author expects research information management to be an area of increasing investment for universities for the foreseeable future, and for libraries to be valuable partners in this space.

The pandemic initiated or accelerated changes that often were executed in haste and with acknowledged and understandable imperfections. It is time to reflect on the changes that were made and assess which ones were effective. For library leaders, that means strategically transforming the library to adapt to evolving staff and community needs and expectations — moving toward a New Model Library. Twenty-nine library leaders across the globe discussed the changes to library work, collections, and engagement experiences that they believe will continue and what their visions are for the future of libraries.

Read the report.

Information literacy has become established as a core research topic in the library and information science field. This book describes this research landscape, identifying the core qualitative approaches applied in the research of information literacy and less used or innovative applications. The central aim of the book is to develop and support readers’ understanding of how information literacy research and teaching is framed, developed and produced.

The creation of institutional repositories (IRs) which became common among research organisations during the first decade of the 21st century was in part a response to excessive cost increases of scientific journal subscriptions. A common aspiration was that as a key part of the open access (OA) movement, institutions would use repositories to take back ownership of their published output and provide access to those unable to afford these exorbitant subscriptions. And because journal subscriptions are mostly handled by libraries, the campus library was often a central sponsor of the IR. Nevertheless, institutional repositories have not evolved in the way they were first intended.

GDC Difusión Científica has partnered with open research publisher F1000 to create a dedicated open research publishing hub, GDC Open Research in Latin America. This Gateway will enable researchers to amplify the impact of their work and promote the principles of open research throughout Latin America and beyond.

In the early days of the pandemic, the Wellcome Foundation issued a statement calling for a global commitment to sharing of all scientific data and information pertaining to COVID-19 for the duration of the health crisis. The Research on Research Institute conducted a follow-up study to report on the success of that call to action. The full text of the report is worth a review and may be found here.

This chapter has been invited to appear in Predatory Practices in Scholarly Communication and Publishing: Causes, Forms, Implications, and Solutions, published by Routledge.

It presents a three-phase analysis of 521 journals that use the open source publishing platform Open Journal Systems (OJS) while appearing on Beall’s list of predatory publishers and journals and/or in Cabells Predatory Reports. The study revealed a misanalysis as “predatory”. PKP’s new technical strategy aims to verify and communicate standards adherence to the public. Work has begun on systems involving trade organizations, such ORCiD and Crossref, for authenticating journal practices. The goal is to provide a publicly accessible industry standard for more reliably assessing journal quality.

Scholarly publishing is in a state of change, and the centuries old model of traditional peer review-based publishing is under more pressure than ever to become faster and more open. Artificial intelligence is now supporting authors and publications alike by speeding up the publication process while helping to preserve quality with fewer human resources, and the tools can give journals competitive advantages for attracting authors. AI-based tools can be used in editorial processes and decision making in ways that support the often-overburdened humans who are responsible for them.

In December 2021 and January 2022, the American Library Association offered free RDA Toolkit demos in the French and Spanish languages respectively. Each demo featured an overview of RDA Toolkit’s features and functionality. Demos were recorded and posted to ALA YouTube channel for viewing at your convenience.

The PCC Policy Committee has decided that the PCC will not implement the Official (new) RDA Toolkit before October 2022. The reason for the added delay is that the site migration of the RDA Toolkit, including original RDA, has impacted the expected update schedule. Once these updates have been made, PCC is planning on conducting a testing period, beginning sometime in March or April of 2022. More information on this test will be coming soon. In the meantime, the PCC will continue to catalog using the Original RDA Toolkit.

Responding to interest in the library community and beyond, ISNI-International Agency is now making available key ISNI metadata in several Linked Data formats. The metadata covers assigned ISNI identifiers themselves and a subset of the associated information describing each one in the ISNI database. You can find more detailed information.

The persistent identifier systems (Persistent Identifiers, PIDs) such as Handle, DOI, ORCID and ROR that are currently used frequently in scientific publishing, have fundamental problems with regard to data security, data protection and ensuring data integrity due to their centralization. A possible solution to this is the system of DIDs: a new form of globally unique identifiers that can be generated by each individual or organization and operated on any platform that is considered trustworthy. At the end of the paper, the author presents five previously worked out requirements in relation to a contemporary implementation of persistent identifiers.

The NISO Plus conference (National Information Standards Organization, USA) brings people together from across the global information community to share updates and participate in conversations about shared challenges and opportunities. The focus is on identifying concrete next steps to improve information flow and interoperability, and help solve existing and potential future problems.

Register now and see the schedule.

France is organising a major international event in the context of the French Presidency of the European Union. This international conference is being organised by the French Academy of Sciences, the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm), the High Council for Evaluation of Research and Higher Education (Hcéres), the National Research Agency (ANR), the University of Lorraine, the University of Nantes and the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation.

The main topics addressed during this conference come within the framework of the transformation of the research and innovation ecosystem in Europe. Particular attention will be given to transparency in health research, the future of scientific publishing, the necessary transformation of research assessment, the opening of codes and software produced in a scientific context.

Register and look at the program.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) will be holding a webinar on the ISNI standard in February 2022 as part of its ongoing Copyright Infrastructure series. This webinar will focus on the role that ISNI plays within the creative industries, including the library, music, research and publishing sectors, as well as copyright management.

The webinar will take place on 16 February 2022 at 7am ET / 12pm GMT / 1pm CET. Attendance is free of charge and all are welcome.

Look at the agenda and register.

The CORE Electronic Resources Interest Group (ERIG) is seeking proposals for 15-20 minute presentations during the virtual CORE Interest Group Week, March 7-11, 2022. ERIG is scheduled for Tuesday, March 8, 2022, 11 am, Central Time.

Sample topics of interest include discovery of Open Access resources, electronic resource management initiatives related to Open Access e-resources, obtaining usage statistics for Open Access content.

Submission deadline: 28 january 2022