Support and demand for KBART increasing within knowledge community
13 June 2011 – UKSG and The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) are pleased to announce that another eight publishers are now able to supply metadata that conforms to the recommended practice, KBART: Knowledge Bases And Related Tools (NISO RP-9-2010). Endorsement of this publication, which contains practical recommendations for the timely exchange of accurate metadata between content providers and knowledge base developers, indicates that the format and content of data supplied by the publisher to knowledge bases and related tools conform to the KBART recommendations. The newest endorsers are:
- American Geophysical Union
- BioScientifica, representing:
- The European Society for Endocrinology
- The Society for Endocrinology
- The Society for Reproduction and Fertility
- Cambridge University Press
- Credo Reference
- Emerald Group Publishing
- IEEE
“BioScientifica manages significant amounts of data on behalf of the growing number of societies to whom we provide publishing services,” says Kathryn Spiller, Assistant Director of Publishing Services at BioScientifica. “KBART’s practical guidelines were easy to implement, and fit with our aim to provide best-of-breed support to all participants in the scholarly information supply chain.”
“We continue to invite all publishers and vendors to publicly endorse KBART’s recommendations,” says Sarah Pearson, co-chair of the working group. “They are simple to adopt, and with mounting awareness among librarians, KBART endorsement is beginning to be a differentiator when making platform and content decisions.”
To learn about how your organization can endorse KBART, and for more information on its Phase II activities, visit www.uksg.org/kbart or www.niso.org/workrooms/kbart.
About KBART
KBART (Knowledge Bases And Related Tools) was set up following the 2007 publication of the UKSG research report “Link Resolvers and the Serials Supply Chain.” Central to the efficient operation of the OpenURL is the knowledge base, which consists of data supplied by content providers including publishers. The report found that a lack of awareness of the OpenURLs capabilities and requirements is impacting the quality and timeliness of data provided to populate knowledge bases, and thus undermining the potential of the sophisticated OpenURL technology. UKSG partnered with NISO to commission the KBART Working Group to develop guidelines for best practice and provide educational materials. The core NISO/UKSG Working Group consists of representatives from libraries, knowledge base developers, publishers, intermediaries and other content providers, and is supported by a monitoring group of interested parties. Its Phase I report, KBART: Knowledge Bases And Related Tools (NISO RP-9-2010), and guidelines have been widely reviewed and tested by a wider group of information supply chain stakeholders. For more information, visit www.uksg.org/kbart or www.niso.org/workrooms/kbart.
About NISO
NISO fosters the development and maintenance of standards that facilitate the creation, persistent management, and effective interchange of information so that it can be trusted for use in research and learning. To fulfill this mission, NISO engages libraries, publishers, information aggregators, and other organizations that support learning, research, and scholarship through the creation, organization, management, and curation of knowledge. NISO works with intersecting communities of interest and across the entire lifecycle of an information standard. NISO is a not-for-profit association accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). More information about NISO is available on its website: www.niso.org. For more information please contact NISO at (301) 654-2512 or via e-mail at nisohq@niso.org.
About UKSG
UKSG exists to connect the information community and encourage the exchange of ideas on scholarly communication. It spans the wide range of interests and activities of the extended scholarly information community of librarians, publishers, intermediaries and technology vendors. In a dynamic environment, UKSG works to:
• facilitate community integration, networking, discussion and exchange of ideas,
• improve members’ knowledge of the scholarly information sector and support skills development,
• stimulate research and collaborative initiatives, encourage innovation and promote standards for good practice, and
• disseminate news, information and publications, and raise awareness of services that support the scholarly information sector.
For more information, please visit the UKSG website, www.uksg.org.