The US' National Federation of Advanced Information Services (NFAIS) recently posted a draft Discovery Service Code of Practice for review and comment by March 16, 2012. NFAIS believes that discovery services have the potential to provide ease of information discovery, access and use, benefitting not only its member organisations, but also the global community of information seekers. However, the relative newness of these services has generated questions and concerns among information providers and librarians. These typically concern how these services meet expectations with regard to issues related to traditional search and retrieval services; e.g. usage reports, ranking algorithms, content coverage, updates, product identification, etc.
Accordingly, the NFAIS document has been developed to assist those who choose to use this new distribution channel through the provision of guidelines that will help avoid the disruption of the delicate balance of interests involved.
NFAIS is inviting all members of the information community to review the draft and submit questions and comments for consideration by the Code Development Task Force. Background information and the draft Code can be accessed at: http://info.nfais.org/info/codedraftintroduction.pdf.
All comments are welcome and can be submitted online at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RV257LM. Alternatively a marked up document or written comments can be submitted to Bonnie Lawlor, NFAIS Executive Director.
Founded in 1958, NFAIS is a membership organisation of more than 60 producers of databases and related information services, information technology and library services in the sciences, engineering, social sciences, business and the arts and humanities.
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