Knowledge base provider EBSCO has announced its support for the Knowledge Base and Related Tools (KBART) Recommended Practice initiative. Commissioned by the National Information Standards Organisation (NISO) and UKSG, the KBART Working Group has established guidelines for the timely exchange of metadata between content providers and knowledge base developers.
This endorsement confirms EBSCO's commitment to the KBART guidelines and the ability of the EBSCO Integrated Knowledge Base to accept KBART-compliant files from content providers. The EBSCO Integrated Knowledge Base serves as the foundation for a number of EBSCO products, including EBSCO A-to-Z, a complete Web-based tool for organising and providing links to all of a library's e-resources; LinkSource, EBSCO's vendor-neutral OpenURL link resolver; EBSCO's MARC Updates service; and EBSCONET ERM Essentials.
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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