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The future of standards
Library Acquisirions: Practice Cc Theory, Vol. 12, pp. 235-238. 1988 Printed in the USA. All rights reserved.
0364-6408/88 $3.00 + .OO Copyright 0 1988 Pergamon Press plc
CHARLESTON CONFERENCE 1987
THE FUTURE OF STANDARDS SANDRA K. PAUL President, SKP Associates 160 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10010
Let’s start with the good news. Standards are becoming sexy. The need for standards is being more evident, and they are becoming more important as automation increases. This has resulted in more participation by librarians, publishers, book jobbers, and subscription agents. That’s the good news. However, there’s bad news as well. Not only do we see more participation from within our community, but we find that we have to cope with the participation of big players from the outside and more influence from the international arena. An example of this is shown by events that took place in the development of the CD-ROM standard. When the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) realized the importance of CD-ROMs to libraries and publishers, they established a Standards Committee to specify the arrangement of data elements on CD-ROMs. CD-ROM manufacturers, concerned about the amount of time it normally takes to develop standards, met, became known as the High Sierra Group and worked within the NISO structure to quickly develop a CD-ROM standard. That standard was put forward by NISO and approved as an ANSI standard. However, simultaneously, the same standard was introduced as an International (ISO) standard. When the IS0 draft was sent to ANSI, instead of referring it to NISO, they sent it to the accredited standards developers for computer systems, Committee X3. Their members, which include all of the major computer hardware vendors such as DEC and IBM, found one little area in the standard which, on second look, they really didn’t like. So, although ANSI had approved the standard as a NISO standard on the one hand, they voted negatively on exactly the same standard as an IS0 standard. Therefore, where we stand today is that we really do have a CDROM standard, but we are not going to promulgate it, nor publish it. We are waiting for that small change to be made so that, in fact, the American national standard will be identical to the international standard. Then when you buy a disk made in Holland, or in Germany, or right here in the United States, you will find the data displayed in the same place on that CD-ROM. So who are the new “bad guys,” the new “black hats?” They may, in fact, be your international counterparts or they may be named IBM or DEC or Apple. I think in a technolog235
236
S. K.
PAUL
ical world society we are going to see more influence of the major hardware manufacturers on the kind of standards that are available to you, and you should be aware of it. Your recourse, as I said last year, is to get involved with NISO; get involved with standards. Let your influence and your library’s influence be heard or those guys with the big bucks (whose budgets were not cut severely by the serials price increases) take over what we want to happen. That’s long term. Now, let me give you an update for the short term on what is going on in the standards world within the next year that I think affects this group. Number one is that the wonderful old ISBN came up for its five-year review and, for the first time in 15 years, was not reaffirmed. Although the number itself was not changed it was decided that the scope of the standard needed to be broadened and a new draft went out for vote. Also, since we have exhausted the allocated numbers beginning with “zero” in the English-speaking community, the British and the U.S. ISBN agencies have started assigning ISBN prefixes beginning with “one.” The revised standard will include rules for hyphenation of the ISBNs beginning with one. (The hyphenation determines which part of the ISBN identifies the publisher and which part, the title.) The voting ended October 30. As the voting representative of the Association of American Publishers I can tell you we voted Negative. We didn’t like some of the changes that were made to it nor the way they were phrased. I don’t know if there were any other negatives, but whenever there is a negative vote, it has to be resolved before a standard can go forward. So it’s going to be a while-1 would guess about 3-6 months- before the revision to that standard will be completed. Related to the ISBN is the new Bookland EAN. That is a bar code symbology used to encode the ISBN on the backs of books so that they can be scanned at receiving or in a circulation system. BISAC (the Book Industry Systems Advisory Committee) has published an explanatory booklet for anyone who wants to know more about this code. Bookland EAN is an international symbol that is being used around the world, and we are starting to see tremendous interest in it in the United States. You will see it on the inside front cover of mass market paperbacks, on the back cover of every Viking Penguin book, and on lots more. 1 think that by the end of 1988 you will see it on all books. I left a form that enables you to order this booklet or anything else that BISAC created outside this room, and I do hope you will pick one up. Last year one of BISAC’s formats became an ANSI standard. The book ordering format is now ANSI standard 239.49, and BISAC was named the maintenance agency for that standard. We learned, about three months ago, that this standard has been adopted as the book ordering format in Australia. We were also recently told that the Canadians are just waiting to tell us that they have accepted it. Finally, at a meeting held in conjunction with the Frankfurt Book Fair, we were told that the U.K. is going to adopt two standards-one is a general trading standard, and the other is ANSI 239.49. So I think that the international acceptance of this format is a fait accompli and a very exciting thing. There are certainly library systems in this country that are making use of that ordering format; check and see if yours is one of them. The Serials Industry Systems Advisory Committee (SISAC) has also developed a bar code. Its called the SISAC Symbol. SISAC recently issued a booklet similar to BISAC’s which explains how one creates this bar code. The SISAC Symbol encodes the issue-specific identifier for serials. SISAC conducted a six-month test of the Symbol and is now seeking more library systems that can scan input at check-in so that we can justify to the publishers the expense they have to incur to put this bar code on the front or back cover of each issue of every serial that they publish. Some publishers are starting to do so; others are waiting for the systems to be in place so that you, the library acquisition community, and your counter-
The Future of Standards
237
parts in the receiving areas can say, “Yes, I can use that in my system, and I want to see it on all of my periodicals.” There is an order form for that booklet outside as well as a general brochure that explains the Serials Industry Systems Advisory Committee. That serial issue identifier and a related article level identifier are currently out for vote as a NISO/ANSI standard. The voting ends November 30. Very shortly a serial ordering and claiming format is also going out for vote. The formats use this identifier as the method of identifying either the issue with which you want to start your subscription or the single issue that you are ordering. Recently SISAC representatives met with those from ADONIS and from the British Library Lending Division to discuss the ANSI and IS0 standard article identifier vs. the number assigned by ADONIS to journal articles. ADONIS was conceived some time ago and is now becoming real. It is a document delivery system created in Europe, funded by the publishers to deliver copies of serial articles based on library requests. They do not plan to simply deliver copies of published articles, but are planning a pre-publication alert service as well. Particularly in the sciences, they believe that there are many informal networks through which scholars and scientists anticipate the publication of technical articles. Their alert service will be sent to the library community as soon as an article is approved by a given publication, even though the specific issue of that publication may not be known. Each article will be assigned an “idiot” (sequential) number, by the publisher. The library can order an article from ADONIS as soon as they want to. When ADONIS receives either an electronic or printed manuscript, they will make a copy of that article available. I think its an intriguing concept that will offer your patrons something new, capitalizing on their own networking and offering you a brand-new service that has never before been available. However, it does require a different identification code than one which is issue-specific. As for other NISO standards, the one I think you might want to know about is Interlibrary Loan. That standard is out for vote until November 30. Again, I know there are some negatives on that one because it does not incorporate the issue identifier previously described. That is easily overcome, but I do not know if there are other negatives as well. In the BISAC arena, there is a new format that was approved last year. It is an order acknowledgment format which enables a vendor to respond within 24 hours to an order placed. The vendor tells the ordering body whether each title ordered will be shipped or, if it won’t be shipped, whether it was backordered or cancelled. If it is backordered and there is a known availability date, that date is provided as well. As was true with all the BISAC formats, this one was developed by vendors and publishers, so it is in an old-fashioned fixedfield format that went out of date in the library community years ago. This year BISAC will be working on a variable-length alternative, a MARC-like representation of this acknowledgment format. I suspect that you in the library community will be able to benefit from it a year and a half from now. Because there are some publishers here, I want you to know that NISO has decided that it wants to publish its own standards. Yesterday they let an RFP. They are seeking a publisher or a marketing and distribution fulfillment service for their standards. If any of the publishers in this room is interested in publishing American National Standards for Libraries, Information Science and Publishing see me, or give me your card, and I’ll make sure you get a copy of the RFP. Another area of concern for NISO is to define the data elements to appear on software packaging. Just as librarians said that publishers must print certain information in certain places on the title pages of books to properly catalog those books, the library community is saying that certain data elements must appear in certain places on software packaging and/or
238
S. K. PAUL
on the first frame of software so that you know how to catalog it. The next standard that NISO will undertake is specifying that same type of information on CD-ROMs. The CDROM format that I mentioned early in my talk designates a field for publisher, a field for producer, a field for copyright, and a field for what is called bibliographic information. However, it does not specify what the content of those fields should be. We are very concerned for instance, if a MARC cataloging record exists for the data that is on a disk you purchase, that you know how to find that data on the disk and that it is the correct MARC record, so that the disk need not be cataloged again by your staff. There will be a NISO standards committee established to look at defining the data in all of those fields on CD-ROM. Another NISO standards committee that is being set up is a result of the work of AVIAC, an acronym which I can’t define for you. AVIAC is a group of circulation systems vendors which has been meeting at ALA. The standards will define circulation system record data elements for patron records and holdings records so that you can transfer them from one circulation system to another with ease. That’s it for long term, short term, and the good and bad guys in the future of standards.
0364-6408/88 $3.00 + .OO Copyright 0 1988 Pergamon Press plc
CHARLESTON CONFERENCE 1987
THE FUTURE OF STANDARDS SANDRA K. PAUL President, SKP Associates 160 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10010
Let’s start with the good news. Standards are becoming sexy. The need for standards is being more evident, and they are becoming more important as automation increases. This has resulted in more participation by librarians, publishers, book jobbers, and subscription agents. That’s the good news. However, there’s bad news as well. Not only do we see more participation from within our community, but we find that we have to cope with the participation of big players from the outside and more influence from the international arena. An example of this is shown by events that took place in the development of the CD-ROM standard. When the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) realized the importance of CD-ROMs to libraries and publishers, they established a Standards Committee to specify the arrangement of data elements on CD-ROMs. CD-ROM manufacturers, concerned about the amount of time it normally takes to develop standards, met, became known as the High Sierra Group and worked within the NISO structure to quickly develop a CD-ROM standard. That standard was put forward by NISO and approved as an ANSI standard. However, simultaneously, the same standard was introduced as an International (ISO) standard. When the IS0 draft was sent to ANSI, instead of referring it to NISO, they sent it to the accredited standards developers for computer systems, Committee X3. Their members, which include all of the major computer hardware vendors such as DEC and IBM, found one little area in the standard which, on second look, they really didn’t like. So, although ANSI had approved the standard as a NISO standard on the one hand, they voted negatively on exactly the same standard as an IS0 standard. Therefore, where we stand today is that we really do have a CDROM standard, but we are not going to promulgate it, nor publish it. We are waiting for that small change to be made so that, in fact, the American national standard will be identical to the international standard. Then when you buy a disk made in Holland, or in Germany, or right here in the United States, you will find the data displayed in the same place on that CD-ROM. So who are the new “bad guys,” the new “black hats?” They may, in fact, be your international counterparts or they may be named IBM or DEC or Apple. I think in a technolog235
236
S. K.
PAUL
ical world society we are going to see more influence of the major hardware manufacturers on the kind of standards that are available to you, and you should be aware of it. Your recourse, as I said last year, is to get involved with NISO; get involved with standards. Let your influence and your library’s influence be heard or those guys with the big bucks (whose budgets were not cut severely by the serials price increases) take over what we want to happen. That’s long term. Now, let me give you an update for the short term on what is going on in the standards world within the next year that I think affects this group. Number one is that the wonderful old ISBN came up for its five-year review and, for the first time in 15 years, was not reaffirmed. Although the number itself was not changed it was decided that the scope of the standard needed to be broadened and a new draft went out for vote. Also, since we have exhausted the allocated numbers beginning with “zero” in the English-speaking community, the British and the U.S. ISBN agencies have started assigning ISBN prefixes beginning with “one.” The revised standard will include rules for hyphenation of the ISBNs beginning with one. (The hyphenation determines which part of the ISBN identifies the publisher and which part, the title.) The voting ended October 30. As the voting representative of the Association of American Publishers I can tell you we voted Negative. We didn’t like some of the changes that were made to it nor the way they were phrased. I don’t know if there were any other negatives, but whenever there is a negative vote, it has to be resolved before a standard can go forward. So it’s going to be a while-1 would guess about 3-6 months- before the revision to that standard will be completed. Related to the ISBN is the new Bookland EAN. That is a bar code symbology used to encode the ISBN on the backs of books so that they can be scanned at receiving or in a circulation system. BISAC (the Book Industry Systems Advisory Committee) has published an explanatory booklet for anyone who wants to know more about this code. Bookland EAN is an international symbol that is being used around the world, and we are starting to see tremendous interest in it in the United States. You will see it on the inside front cover of mass market paperbacks, on the back cover of every Viking Penguin book, and on lots more. 1 think that by the end of 1988 you will see it on all books. I left a form that enables you to order this booklet or anything else that BISAC created outside this room, and I do hope you will pick one up. Last year one of BISAC’s formats became an ANSI standard. The book ordering format is now ANSI standard 239.49, and BISAC was named the maintenance agency for that standard. We learned, about three months ago, that this standard has been adopted as the book ordering format in Australia. We were also recently told that the Canadians are just waiting to tell us that they have accepted it. Finally, at a meeting held in conjunction with the Frankfurt Book Fair, we were told that the U.K. is going to adopt two standards-one is a general trading standard, and the other is ANSI 239.49. So I think that the international acceptance of this format is a fait accompli and a very exciting thing. There are certainly library systems in this country that are making use of that ordering format; check and see if yours is one of them. The Serials Industry Systems Advisory Committee (SISAC) has also developed a bar code. Its called the SISAC Symbol. SISAC recently issued a booklet similar to BISAC’s which explains how one creates this bar code. The SISAC Symbol encodes the issue-specific identifier for serials. SISAC conducted a six-month test of the Symbol and is now seeking more library systems that can scan input at check-in so that we can justify to the publishers the expense they have to incur to put this bar code on the front or back cover of each issue of every serial that they publish. Some publishers are starting to do so; others are waiting for the systems to be in place so that you, the library acquisition community, and your counter-
The Future of Standards
237
parts in the receiving areas can say, “Yes, I can use that in my system, and I want to see it on all of my periodicals.” There is an order form for that booklet outside as well as a general brochure that explains the Serials Industry Systems Advisory Committee. That serial issue identifier and a related article level identifier are currently out for vote as a NISO/ANSI standard. The voting ends November 30. Very shortly a serial ordering and claiming format is also going out for vote. The formats use this identifier as the method of identifying either the issue with which you want to start your subscription or the single issue that you are ordering. Recently SISAC representatives met with those from ADONIS and from the British Library Lending Division to discuss the ANSI and IS0 standard article identifier vs. the number assigned by ADONIS to journal articles. ADONIS was conceived some time ago and is now becoming real. It is a document delivery system created in Europe, funded by the publishers to deliver copies of serial articles based on library requests. They do not plan to simply deliver copies of published articles, but are planning a pre-publication alert service as well. Particularly in the sciences, they believe that there are many informal networks through which scholars and scientists anticipate the publication of technical articles. Their alert service will be sent to the library community as soon as an article is approved by a given publication, even though the specific issue of that publication may not be known. Each article will be assigned an “idiot” (sequential) number, by the publisher. The library can order an article from ADONIS as soon as they want to. When ADONIS receives either an electronic or printed manuscript, they will make a copy of that article available. I think its an intriguing concept that will offer your patrons something new, capitalizing on their own networking and offering you a brand-new service that has never before been available. However, it does require a different identification code than one which is issue-specific. As for other NISO standards, the one I think you might want to know about is Interlibrary Loan. That standard is out for vote until November 30. Again, I know there are some negatives on that one because it does not incorporate the issue identifier previously described. That is easily overcome, but I do not know if there are other negatives as well. In the BISAC arena, there is a new format that was approved last year. It is an order acknowledgment format which enables a vendor to respond within 24 hours to an order placed. The vendor tells the ordering body whether each title ordered will be shipped or, if it won’t be shipped, whether it was backordered or cancelled. If it is backordered and there is a known availability date, that date is provided as well. As was true with all the BISAC formats, this one was developed by vendors and publishers, so it is in an old-fashioned fixedfield format that went out of date in the library community years ago. This year BISAC will be working on a variable-length alternative, a MARC-like representation of this acknowledgment format. I suspect that you in the library community will be able to benefit from it a year and a half from now. Because there are some publishers here, I want you to know that NISO has decided that it wants to publish its own standards. Yesterday they let an RFP. They are seeking a publisher or a marketing and distribution fulfillment service for their standards. If any of the publishers in this room is interested in publishing American National Standards for Libraries, Information Science and Publishing see me, or give me your card, and I’ll make sure you get a copy of the RFP. Another area of concern for NISO is to define the data elements to appear on software packaging. Just as librarians said that publishers must print certain information in certain places on the title pages of books to properly catalog those books, the library community is saying that certain data elements must appear in certain places on software packaging and/or
238
S. K. PAUL
on the first frame of software so that you know how to catalog it. The next standard that NISO will undertake is specifying that same type of information on CD-ROMs. The CDROM format that I mentioned early in my talk designates a field for publisher, a field for producer, a field for copyright, and a field for what is called bibliographic information. However, it does not specify what the content of those fields should be. We are very concerned for instance, if a MARC cataloging record exists for the data that is on a disk you purchase, that you know how to find that data on the disk and that it is the correct MARC record, so that the disk need not be cataloged again by your staff. There will be a NISO standards committee established to look at defining the data in all of those fields on CD-ROM. Another NISO standards committee that is being set up is a result of the work of AVIAC, an acronym which I can’t define for you. AVIAC is a group of circulation systems vendors which has been meeting at ALA. The standards will define circulation system record data elements for patron records and holdings records so that you can transfer them from one circulation system to another with ease. That’s it for long term, short term, and the good and bad guys in the future of standards.