The ISNI International Agency (ISNI-IA) announces it is formally reviewing the handling of gender identities associated with the ISO 27729 International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI). A small advisory group will review current ISNI policy and emerging best practice in gender identification to identify shortcomings. The group will involve representatives from key ISNI sectors (including libraries, the music industry, book publishing and rights organisations) and from affected groups. The recommendations will be offered to ISNI’s community for comment and the ISNI Board will make a final decision.

IFLA’s Key Initiative 2.3 outlines the integral role of  developing standards, guidelines and other documents that foster best professional practice. During the session of IFLA’s Committee on Standards, Vincent Boulet highlighted the role Standards play in dealing with user tasks (IFLA Library Reference Model – LRM). The strength of IFLA Standards lies in their continued visibility and adaptability. In order to ensure both, new opportunities to build bridges with other stakeholders must be taken.

These include “ensuring a new generation interoperability (cross-domain identifiers) and joining other networks. Joseph Hafner, Chair of LIDATEC, provided an update on the recently-launched Namespaces project, a powerful linking tool that brings all of IFLA’s technical standards together.

The French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation has released its second national open science plan, which proposes specific actions around PIDs such as:

• Standardise the Software Heritage Identifier (SWHID), which will complement the DOIs for software.
• Encourage researchers to adopt ORCID iDs, and propose adding data from ORCID to the research information systems to limit duplication efforts.
• Participate in the governance of standards for metadata and persistent digital identifiers (Crossref, DataCite, ORCID, ROR) and in the governance of open science services (Directory of Open Access Journals, Directory of Open Access Books, OPERAS,…).

More info on https://www.ouvrirlascience.fr/second-national-plan-for-open-science/ 8

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) publishes the latest update to the JATS: Journal Article Tag Suite standard (ANSI/NISO Z39.96-2021), Version 1.3.

JATS provides a common XML format in which publishers and archives can exchange journal content—both articles (text and graphics) and non-article material such as letters, editorials, and book and product reviews. The Tag Suite is the complete set of elements and attributes described in the standard. Along with these descriptions, the standard includes three implementations of the suite, called Tag Sets, which are intended to provide models for archiving, publishing, and authoring journal article content. Version 1.3 of the standard incorporates public comments made through October 2020.

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) announces the publication of its updated ANSI/NISO Z39.4, Criteria for Indexes, incorporating feedback from the public comment period earlier this year. It replaces the original ANSI/NISO Z39.4 standard (Guidelines for Indexes and Related Information Retrieval Devices), last updated in 1984, and is an updated and expanded version of NISO’s Guidelines for Indexes and Related Information Retrieval Devices (a technical report, TR02-1997).

The updated standard provides guidelines for the content, organization, and presentation of indexes used for the retrieval of information. It deals with the principles of indexing—regardless of the type of material indexed, the indexing method used, the medium of the index, or the method of presentation for searching.

As part of a recent security review and the migration of the ISNI website to a more trusted https environment, ISNI International Agency revisited the preferred format for representing ISNI identiers. The canonical ISNI URI now incorporates the change from http to https so that all ISNI URIs are now of the pattern https://isni.org/isni/ID, where ID is the 16-digit ISNI (without
any spaces) – for example https://isni.org/isni/000000012124423X.

The British Library has now launched its online, all-in-one service for the International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI). The Portal offers three services for ISNI users: a registration service for the assignment of ISNIs; a search and discovery function for finding and viewing existing ISNI records via the ISNI database; and a review function which enables ISNI users to recommend additions or corrections to existing ISNI records.

The partner institutions of the GND cooperative will host the second convention on the integrated authority file (GNDCon 2.0). Digital, diverse and decentralized people with different interests and from heterogeneous areas discuss very different questions, tasks and approaches around the topic of GND over five days. Among the jury is Ms Ulrike Junger, Head of the  Acquisitions and Cataloging Department at the German National Library and member of the Governing Board of ISSN International Centre.

Registration opens on 3rd May 2021. Keep an eye on the GND blog.

The aim of the 3R-DACH project for libraries is to prepare the new RDA regulations and the new structure of the RDA Toolkit for practical work in German-speaking countries. The project was approved at the meeting of the standardization committee in December 2020 and commissioned under the direction of the DNB. The process will result in a indexing manual. The project runs until the end of 2022.