Abstract
The Knowledge Bases and Related Tools (KBART) project is an initiative of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and the United Kingdom Serials Group (UKSG), and has established a set of best practices for the exchange of electronic resource holdings metadata between content providers and knowledgebase developers. The benefits of KBART are that it relieves information professionals from the time-consuming process of actively reconciling e-journal title lists, and addresses the many inadequacies which are common in title holdings lists. As of June 1, 2010, KBART has been endorsed by the American Institute of Physics, Ex Libris, Serials Solutions, and the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). Information professionals can facilitate the further endorsement of KBART by requesting accurate holdings lists from providers up front and referring providers to the KBART recommendations to encourage broader adoption of these best practices. Looking forward, the KBART Working Group hopes to achieve universal acceptance of these best practices and the expansion of the practice to more varied electronic resource formats.
INTRODUCTION
Jason Price is currently a member of the Knowledge Bases And Related Tools (KBART) Working Group, which is now entering its second phase of the development process. In this presentation, Price provided background on the KBART project, discussed the issues this project is intended to address, and shared the current status and latest developments of the project. He also offered ways in which information professionals can work to move KBART toward broader acceptance, and provided a vision for the future of the KBART project.
OVERVIEW OF KBART
KBART is an initiative of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and the United Kingdom Serials Group (UKSG) to explore the use of OpenURL to provide solutions to the various data problems existing in the knowledgebase supply chain. In addition to these two standards organizations, the KBART Working Group, consisting of members representing knowledgebase vendors, content aggregators, publishers, subscription agents, libraries, and consortia, came together to examine the prevailing issues and develop a recommended practice.Footnote 1 Price described KBART's goals to provide a set of practical recommendations for the timely exchange of accurate metadata between content providers and knowledgebase developers, a universally acceptable holdings list format, and a single solution for sharing holdings data across the scholarly content supply chain. The knowledgebase is at the center of this supply chain, with content originating from the publisher, moving through the chain and ultimately being delivered to users via an institutional discovery tool (see ).
FIGURE 1 Information supply chain.
Knowledgebase management without the benefit of KBART's practice includes the proactive reconciliation of an e-journal package title list by information professionals at the library, consortium, and knowledgebase provider level, which is a time- and labor-intensive process. This complex process, which now applies not only to serials but also to e-books and other forms of media, has been documented in a 2007 UKSG Report called Link Resolvers and the Serial Supply Chain: Final Project Report for UKSG.Footnote 2 One of the advantages of KBART's recommended practice is that it enables the maintenance of accurate package content coverage data by supporting OpenURL link resolvers, supporting e-journal machine-readable cataloging (MARC) record delivery services, and enabling automated updating by knowledgebase providers. Another benefit is that the practice addresses common holdings list inadequacies, including the reuse of International Standard Serial Numbers (ISSNs), embargo period ambiguities, and inconsistent date and enumeration formats. The impact of KBART's work is that it will essentially put an end to information professionals serving as translators for this data as the list of necessary title list elements is standardized and automatically ingested into the knowledgebase. shows the standardized field names that will enable these benefits.
TABLE 1 KBART Metadata Exchange Format
CURRENT STATUS OF KBART
The KBART Working Group has completed Phase I of the project, which focused on best practices for addressing existing data problems affecting the supply chain of information for knowledgebases. The Phase I recommended practice report was published in January 2010,Footnote 3 and KBART is currently a NISO/UKSG recommended practice. The working group is now entering Phase II of the project, which will focus on adoption of the Phase I recommendations. As of June 1, 2010, KBART has been publicly endorsed by the American Institute of Physics, Ex Libris, Serials Solutions, and the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC).Footnote 4 Price encouraged librarians and information professionals to become involved in the adoption of KBART's recommended practice by lobbying publishers for delivery of usable holdings lists before making the purchase, and directing publishers to KBART when these holdings lists prove to be inadequate. Price also indicated the following steps publishers can take to adopt the KBART best practices:
| 1. | Review the requirements for transitioning to KBART compliance.Footnote 5 | ||||
| 2. | Format e-journal and e-book content availability data to meet the requirements. | ||||
| 3. | Check datasheets on the KBART website to ensure that they conform to the recommended practice and make any necessary corrections. | ||||
| 4. | Ensure that a process is in place for regular data exchange outlined in section 5.2 of the KBART report.Footnote 6 | ||||
| 5. | Register the organization on the KBART registry website, providing a link to download the newly KBART formatted data sets.Footnote 7 | ||||
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
The vision beyond KBART's current work is to achieve universally accepted, standardized publisher metadata in the KBART registry. Having this information in the registry will benefit librarians because it will be regularly distributed and available on demand. Another big push will be broad adoption of the practice and more extensive content type coverage, such as e-books and conference proceedings. Finally, there has been discussion within the KBART Working Group regarding the distribution of metadata that has been customized for consortium- and institution-level access lists based on what is accessible from a particular IP address. Price indicated that while this final goal may be more of a dream on his part, it would ensure that access lists are customized for individual institutions rather than a global list, resulting in an accurate account of the titles the institution has actually purchased. The KBART Working Group will continue to convene regularly to achieve the realization of this vision.
Notes
1. For the current list of KBART Working Group members see: United Kingdom Serials Group, “KBART Working Group Members,” http://www.uksg.org/kbart/members (accessed June 29, 2010).
2. James Culling, Link Resolvers and the Serials Supply Chain: Final Project Report for UKSG (Oxford, UK: Scholarly Information Strategies, Oxford Centre for Innovation, 2007), http://www.uksg.org/sites/uksg.org/files/uksg_link_resolvers_final_report.pdf (accessed July 9, 2010).
3. NISO/UKSG KBART Working Group, KBART: Knowledge Bases and Related Tools: A Recommended Practice of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and UKSG (Baltimore, MD: National Information Standards Organization, 2010), http://www.uksg.org/sites/uksg.org/files/KBART_Phase_I_Recommended_Practice.pdf (accessed September 28, 2010).
4. For the current list of endorsing organizations see: United Kingdom Serials Group, “KBART: Endorsing Organisations,” http://www.uksg.org/kbart/endorsers (accessed June 29, 2010).
5. United Kingdom Serials Group, “KBART 5.1: Transitioning to KBART,” http://www.uksg.org/kbart/s5/transition (accessed June 29, 2010).
6. NISO/UKSG KBART Working Group, KBART, 13.
7. National Information Standards Organization and United Kingdom Serials Group, “KBART Registry,” http://bit.ly/kbartregistry (accessed June 29, 2010).