According to the International Cataloguing Principles (ICP), the Form of Name for Persons as an authorized access point should be constructed following a standard. A new file devoted to Chinese names is available on the Names of Persons webpage. The file is divided into three parts, one for mainland China, and two smaller parts for the special traits from Hong Kong and Macau. This is an excellent and library-oriented piece of information about how Chinese personal names are structured, and aims to be a guide for non-Chinese librarians to better understand and work with Chinese authors.

This is the first in a series of five blog posts about JISC’s PIDs for Open Access project, aimed at expanding adoption and usage of persistent identifiers in the UK. Building on the 2019 report Developing a persistent identifier roadmap for open access to UK research, a group of stakeholders discussed the five persistent identifiers (PIDs) that have been deemed high priority for improving access to UK research. These are ORCID iDs for people, Crossref and DataCite DOIs for outputs, Crossref grant DOIs, ROR identifiers for organisations, and RAiDs for projects. The series of blog posts are based on the work accomplished by the 5 corresponding focus groups. The first two posts explore how grant IDs and PIDs for projects could be integrated into the research ecosystem more effectively.

OCLC released Transitioning to the Next Generation of Metadata, a report which synthesizes six years (2015-2020) of OCLC Research Library Partners Metadata Managers Focus Group discussions, and what they may foretell for the next generation of metadata. The 56-page report discusses the ways in which metadata is evolving in the information environment, touching on concerns having to do with tools, infrastructure, and changing standards. Why is metadata changing? What is the impact on metadata creation and what does that imply for internal workflows? The report is further supported by useful supplementary material — specifically, an annotated bibliography.

The FREYA team has taken forward a conversation that has been developing over several years amongst persistent identifier (PID) users and providers: the idea that these critical research information infrastructures could be better supported by a coordinated community. A ‘federation’ of PID providers and users, spanning other research infrastructures, funders and policy makers, and the wide research community was mooted in January 2020. A project was commissioned to scope this potential ‘PID Federation’, undertaken between June and September 2020. This report outlines that project and summarises its key recommendations.

The inaugural NISO Plus conference took place in Baltimore, MD on February 23-25, 2020. Following the merger of NFAIS and NISO in 2019, the goal was to combine the thought leadership tradition of the former NFAIS conference with the hands-on practicality of NISO. The conference brought together around 250 professionals from across the information community to focus on shared challenges and opportunities through a combination of presentations and in-depth discussions, culminating in concrete next steps for NISO and its community. Download the full report from Figshare.

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) launched its strategic plan for July 2020 – 2023, which focuses on four key themes: Diversity and Inclusion; Trendsetting; Standards Development for Content and Technology; and Community Development. The plan takes account of NISO’s expanded membership and broader remit following its 2019 merger with NFAIS, which provides the organization with an opportunity to pursue new objectives and goals aligned with its vision of a world where all benefit from the unfettered exchange of information.

The 2020-2023 Strategic Plan can be found here.

Now that more and more organisations have chosen and implemented persistent identifiers, it is time to share use/er experiences of the organizations (as provider and maintainer of persistent identifiers) and of their online visitors (man or machine, who use persistent identifiers to get access to information or objects). The Dutch Digital Heritage Network wants to collaboratively write and publish a guide to the use of persistent identifiers in the cultural heritage sector. The PID Guide application guides you through 25 statements, helps you learn and think about important PID subjects, and guides your first steps towards selecting a PID system.

The LRM (Library Reference Model) is the latest standard to be included on the new IFLA Namespaces site. Visit the site at: https://www.iflastandards.info/lrm.html. The IFLA Namespaces is designed to promote IFLA standards using linked data and is a project from the LIDATEC subcommittee of the IFLA Committee on Standards.

Visit the site at: https://www.iflastandards.info/ and https://www.ifla.org/lidatec.

Every modern book published has an ISBN, which uniquely identifies that book, and anyone publishing a book can get an ISBN for it whether an individual or a huge publishing house. It’s a little more complex than that in practice but generally speaking it’s 1 book, 1 ISBN. Nevertheless, while most publishers stick to the rules about never reusing an ISBN, it’s apparently common knowledge in the book trade that ISBNs from old books get reused for newer books, sometimes accidentally, sometimes intentionally, and that has some tricky consequences.

DataCite is proud to announce the launch of DataCite Commons, available at https://commons.datacite.org. DataCite Commons is a discovery service that enables simple searches while giving users a comprehensive overview of connections between entities in the research landscape. This means that DataCite members registering DOIs  will have easier access to information about the use of their DOIs, and can discover and track connections between their DOIs and other entities. DataCite Commons was developed as part of the EC-funded Project Freya and will form the basis of new DataCite services.