The role of knowledge bases in improving discoverability now and in the future- why national and international collaboration is key The role of knowledge bases in improving discoverability now and in the future- why national and international collaboration is key CONCERT Conference: Taipei, Nov 2011 Sarah Pearson University of Birmingham Co-Chair KBART Working Group

University of Birmingham  UoB Campus

Agenda  The changing e-resource landscape  The need for integration and visibility  The role of library technology  Standards and best practice  What does the future hold?

Changing expectations  The explosion of online publishing output  Access more with less – the Big Deal  The global economic crisis  Rising user expectation  The technology landscape shifting

The changing e-resource landscape  Library catalogue (OPAC)  Link resolvers  Federated search engines  Vertical search resource discovery services  Semantic web and content aggregation

What is a knowledge base?  A database  Contains information about web resources (global) –e.g. what journal holdings are available in JSTOR –and how you link to articles in them  Contains information about the resources a library has licensed/owns (local) –May contain electronic and print holdings (in addition to a number of other services)  Used by a link resolver to direct institutional users to the ‘appropriate copy’

So why is it so important?  It knows where all the content is  It knows which versions the library is able to access  So – it’s the only place that can get a user to the “appropriate copy”

And that means  More content visible to end users  Content linking is more accurate for end users  Increase in content usage  Maximum reach for authors and editors  Better return on investment for library  Favourable renewal decision  Protection of revenue for content providers

Knowledge base: Holdings information used by an OpenURL link resolver. OpenURL link resolver matches against knowledge base to determine availability of electronic full text

institution     repository publisher website database print collections gateways article citation article title = … first author = … journal name = … article title = … first author = … journal name = … metadata string OpenURL query (base URL + metadata string) resolver.institution.edu base URL of link resolver link resolver’s knowledge base publisher/provider holdings data library holdings data content licence  target (cited) article predictable link

If the holdings information in the knowledge base is outdated/incorrect, it impacts the OpenURL link resolver performance. This affects the decision making-process of librarians and ultimately end user experience. In order to expect consistent metadata delivery from content providers, the requirements need to be consistent as well.

 Knowledge Bases And Related Tools  UKSG and NISO collaborative project  UKSG 2007 research report, “Link Resolvers and the Serials Supply Chain”Link Resolvers and the Serials Supply Chain  To improve navigation of the e-resource supply chain by…..  Ensuring timely transfer of accurate data to knowledge bases Right. So. What is KBART?

 Standards / industry organisations –UKSG and NISO  Working group members (stakeholders): –Knowledge base vendors  ExLibris, Serials Solutions, EBSCO, OCLC –Content Providers (Publisher & Aggregators)  AIP, T&F, Royal Society Publishing, Publishing Technology, Cengage Gale, Swets, Springer –Libraries & Consortia  Full list --

Deliverables  A NISO Recommended Practice  A universally acceptable holdings list format  Tab-delimited text files  Delivered via HTTP or FTP  Guidelines for fields and values  A single format for sharing holdings data across the scholarly content supply chain  Hosted by providers  Discoverable on the registry

 First publisher KBART adopter –

Registry contact

Where are we at?  Phase I KBART Recommended Practice released Jan  Endorsers listed at  Phase II started in March 2010

KBART Phase 2  Consortial metadata fields included  Open access metadata requirements  Further refinement of fields for e-books and conference proceedings

KBART Consortial Licences Commercial Knowledge Bases Shared Services Industry Standards Publisher Engagement Resource Discovery Developments Metadata Repository Institutional entitlements

KB Metadata: The Future  Shared services and ‘above campus’ solutions to e- resource management inefficiencies  Best practice on integration with Resource Discovery Services  Open metadata initiatives to improve re-user of collections metadata  Analysis of standards in ERM arena and gap analysis

Thank You! Sarah Pearson E-Resources & Serials Coordinator University of Birmingham