International Identifier for serials
and other continuing resources, in the electronic and print world

ROR’s 2020 Annual Report: A ROR-port on the past year and a look to what’s next

The Research Organization Registry is a cross-organizational and multi-stakeholder initiative. The collaborative nature of ROR’s approach, and the registry’s focus on providing an open, noncommercial, and community-driven solution, set it apart from other types of identifier providers and infrastructure organizations. View the 2020 Annual Report
The new ROR Data Dump 7.1 (March 2021) includes additional metadata from GRID that was not previously available in ROR. The new metadata now available includes relationships between organizations as well as expanded location data.

DataCite is expanding its Metadata Schema

The DataCite Metadata Schema is a list of core metadata properties chosen for an accurate and consistent identification of a resource for citation and retrieval purposes, along with recommended use instructions. The DataCite Metadata Working Group released a new version (4.4) of the DataCite Metadata Schema Documentation for the Publication and Citation of Research Data and Other Research Outputs. This release of the Metadata Schema contains better support for textual publications. Important changes are the addition of specific resource types such as journal, journal article, dissertation, etc., and also includes computational notebook and peer review, so that these types can be better identified. Also, a new property, relatedItem, is introduced which contains information about a resource related to the one being registered, e.g., a journal article, conference paper, or a book series. It can be used to describe a text citation where relatedIdentifier cannot be used because the related resource does not have an identifier.

NISO Approval Ballot for JATS 1.3 Opening Soon

The voting members are being asked to approve the latest draft of ANSI/NISO Z39.96, JATS: Journal Article Tag Suite.  The new draft, technically known right now as BSR/NISO Z39.96-202x, JATS: Journal Article Tag Suite (1.3), incorporates changes made to JATS 1.2 through December 2020. The purpose of JATS is to define a suite of XML elements and attributes that describes the content of metadata and journal articles using a common format that enables the exchange of journal content between publishers and archives.

PIDs para principiantes / PIDs for beginners

Tanto si eres nuevo en el mundo de los identificadores persistentes como si solo necesitas un repaso básico sobre PIDs, ¡esta sesión introductoria es para ti! En el programa: qué es un identificador persistente, qué pueden hacer y por qué son importantes; también se compartirá información sobre algunos PID clave.

Whether you’re new to the world of persistent identifiers or just need a basic review of PIDs, this introductory session is for you! On the agenda: what is a persistent identifier, what can they do and why are they important; information on some key PIDs will also be shared.

ISNI developments in Québec and beyond

Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) has been an ISNI registration agency since July 2019, assigning ISNIs to local creatives and increasing the discoverability of cultural content in Québec. A great deal of progress has been made by BAnQ, offering a range of online services, including: automatic assignment of an ISNI; online application to obtain an ISNI for persons and/or organizations; and a Frequently Asked Questions webpage. Since mid-2019, BAnQ has assigned over 215,000 ISNIs to those associated with creative works within the region, emphasising the development of, and ongoing support for, the ISNI standard across Québec.

BL, OCLC to load NACO name authorities into ISNI database

The British Library (BL) and OCLC are collaborating on a strategic initiative to enrich the links between the international name authority file of the Library of Congress and Program for Cooperative Cataloging (aka the LC-NACO) and the ISNI database. The BL has prepared and submitted a ‘back file’ of NACO records created over the last 5 years, for addition to the ISNI system. The NACO records have been enriched with additional ISBN and title data from the BL’s catalogue and from the LC’s ‘Books All’ file to facilitate matching and disambiguation. Aligning the ISNI database with up-to-date NACO name authorities will facilitate the integration of ISNIs into authority control workflows across the wider library sector and the Linked Data ecosystem. ISNIs derived from NACO correlations are already shown in the BL’s Linked Open Data BNB (British National Bibliography), and the 5-year update will add many more ISNIs to that file.

Next generation of metadata for digital collection discoverability

The report “Transforming Metadata into Linked Data to Improve Digital Collection Discoverability: A CONTENTdm Pilot Project” shares the CONTENTdm Linked Data Pilot project findings, where OCLC and five partner institutions investigated methods for transforming metadata into linked data, to improve the discoverability and management of digitized cultural materials. This follows the first report published in 2020, Transitioning to the Next Generation of Metadata”, that shone a light on the evolution of the next generation of metadata.

14 publishers endorse NISO Transfer Code of Practice in 2020

In 2020, NISO welcomed 14 new endorsing publishers as the most recent adopters of its Transfer Code of Practice. The Code contains best practice guidelines for both the Transferring Publisher and the Receiving Publisher, to ensure that journal content remains easily accessible by librarians and readers. Publishers who endorse the Code can register for free with the ISSN Portal; when they acquire a title, they may record the transfer through the ISSN Portal. Information about transfers is shared with the library and publishing communities via the Transfer Alerting Service.