As a result of the amendments introduced by the European Directive issued on 6 November 2018, Member States of the European Union are now authorised to apply the VAT rates they apply to printed publications to the marketing of periodicals and books published online. The Italian Revenue Agency explains in which cases the reduced VAT rate of 4% also applies to databases that allow access to editorial content. The requirement for the application of VAT at 4% is the identification of the editorial product with the ISBN or ISSN. The ISSN code must identify, not so much the database itself, but the editorial contents it gives access to.

[Article in Italian]

NISO has just released an updated version of the Transfer Code of Practice that provides voluntary guidelines for publishers to follow when transferring journal titles between parties. The ISSN International Centre supports this initiative by managing the Enhanced Transfer Alerting Service.

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) announces the formal publication of a new update to the JATS: Journal Article Tag Suite standard (ANSI/NISO Z39.96-2019). The purpose of JATS is to define a suite of XML elements and attributes describing the content of metadata and journal articles while using a common format that enables the interchange and exchange of that content. The added elements and modifications made in 2019 allow greater flexibility in existing models while enabling support for emerging publishing practices. The published version of the Standard may be found at https://www.niso.org/publications/z3996-2019-jats.  Non-normative and supporting materials, including schemas and Tag Library documents, may be found at: https://jats.nlm.nih.gov.

In their article, the three authors affiliated with ORCID share their view of persistent identifiers (PIDs) as foundational elements in the overall research information infrastructure. PIDs enable entities to be uniquely identified and connected, to create reliable links between them.

Cataloging Norms Interest Group offers a forum for the exploration, communication, and exchange of ideas and best practices on the dynamics of cataloging/metadata norms and workflows in the hybrid environment.

Please email proposal abstracts to co-chairs Paul Heyde (pch36@case.edu) and Rachel Turner (turnerr@binghamton.edu) by Tuesday, April 2nd, 2018.

Recent months have seen further significant recruitment of new Members and Registration Agencies of  ISNI International Agency (ISNI-IA). This brings the total membership to about 42 organizations and continues to broaden the base of ISNI participation. Many of these registration agencies are national libraries which specialise in registering contributor names from their particular country or region as part of their normal cataloguing processes, and some specialise in a particular industry sector or only register their own identities and business partners. Others are commercial organisations which may charge a fee for assigning an ISNI.

The RDA Steering Committee has announced several changes to its membership. Kathy Glennan began a four-year term as RSC Chair on January 1, 2019. Gordon Dunsire will continue in the role of RSC liaison to the IFLA Permanent UNIMARC Committee, in a two-year term that concludes at the end of December 2020.

The protocol between the RSC and the IFLA Permanent UNIMARC Committee (RSC/Chair/22) has been agreed to by both parties.

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and National Federation of Advanced Information Services (NFAIS) have announced a proposed combination, designed to better serve their members, during a time of rapid change. The combined association will be more effective and influential within the community of publishers, information distributors, libraries, government agencies, and technology partners who make up the membership.

Alice Meadows, the Director of Communications for ORCID, gives an uncomprehensive account and her own thoughts about the PIDapalooza event. Here are some of the themes that emerged from the sessions she attended. The presentations are available on PIDapalooza 2019 repository.

At the ALA Midwinter Meeting held in Seattle in January 2019, members of the RDA Steering Committee hosted this three hour event thanks to the Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access. The presentations and subsequent question and answers sessions were recorded, and the recordings have been posted on the RDA YouTube channel.