The UKSG and the National Information Standards Organisation (NISO) have announced that the American Institute of Physics, Ex Libris, OCLC and Serials Solutions are the first organisations to publicly endorse the Phase I recommendations of the KBART (Knowledge Bases And Related Tools) Working Group, a joint initiative that is exploring data problems within the OpenURL supply chain. KBART's Phase I Recommended Practice, published in January 2010, contains practical recommendations for the timely exchange of accurate metadata between content providers and knowledge base developers.
A number of other major organisations in the scholarly information supply chain are also working towards KBART endorsement. All content providers - from major databases to small publishers - are encouraged to publicly endorse the KBART Recommended Practice by submitting a sample file to the KBART working group. Once the file's format and content has been reviewed and approved, and the provider has made it publicly available (in line with the recommendations), the provider will be added to a public list of endorsing providers.
Knowledge base developers can endorse the KBART Recommended Practice by confirming that their systems can process KBART formatted files. In addition, a contacts registry is now available on the KBART Information Hub at www.uksg.org/kbart where content providers and knowledge base developers can register their organisation's information for downloading holdings metadata.
The KBART working group is now progressing to Phase II, which will build on the foundation phase to address more complex data issues, including different types of content, emerging business models and customised licensing. Sarah Pearson, E-Resources & Serials Coordinator at the University of Birmingham, and Andreas Biedenbach, Manager of eProduct Operations for Springer, will take on the roles of UKSG co-chair and NISO co-chair respectively for KBART’s Phase II.
KBART 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.
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