"Standards for Metadata: Who is developing What, where and why" Presented by Todd Carpenter at American Association of University Presses (AAUP) Annual Conference in New Orleans, LA on June 22, 2014

1. Standards:
Who is developing
what, where, and why?
Todd Carpenter, Executive Director, NISO
American Association of University Presses Conference
New Orleans, LA • • • June 23, 2014

2. Image: DanTaylor Image: Joel Washing
Standards are familiar, even if you don’t notice

3. A US-baed non-profit industry trade association accredited by
ANSI with 200+ members
Mission of developing and maintaining technical standards
related to information, documentation, discovery and
distribution of published materials & media
Volunteer driven organization: 400+ spread out across the
world
Represent US interests to ISO TC 46 & subcommittees
Also serve as Secretariat for ISO TC46/SC9 - Identification &
Description
Responsible for standards like ISSN, DOI, Dublin Core metadata,
DAISY digital talking books, OpenURL, MARC records format,
and ISBN
About

4. NISO’s Community
35 % Publishers/Publishing
Organizations
32% Libraries/Library
Organizations
36 LSA Members
(non-voting)
33% Library Systems Suppliers,
Publishing Vendors & Intermediaries
ISO
ANSI
Other SDOs

6. Technical Committee (TC) 46
Information & Documentation
Subcommittees (SC):
4 – Systems Interoperability
8 – Performance Measurement
9 – Identification & Description
11 – Records Management
NISO manages the Secretariat of ISO TC 46, SC 9

11. • IDEAlliance - Magazine industry, PRISM
• Library of Congress - MARC, PREMIS, SRU/SRW
• ALA - AACR2, RDA
• IDPF - EPUB, E-books
• ARMA-International - Records Management
• OASIS - XML Standards
• CrossRef - DOIs, FundRef, CrossMark
• IMSGlobal - Learning Management Systems
• Amazon - ASIN, KINDLE
Still More Standards(ish)
Organizations

12. • Image:
Mark
Bide
(EDITEUR)
12

13. 13
• Image:
Mark
Bide
(EDITEUR)

14. 14
• Image:
Mark
Bide
(EDITEUR)

15. One Ring to Rule Them All?

16. Photo: Minneapolis College
of Art and Design Library
June 20, 2014
16

17. Photo: OSU Thompson Library Stacks” by Kristin Six
June 20, 2014
17

18. 18
June 20, 2014
You
can’t
walk
the
stacks
in
a
digital
library

19. 19
June 20, 2014

20. 19
June 20, 2014

21. Some NISO Work in these areas
Open
Discovery
Initiative
Knowledgebases
&
Related
Tools
Open
Access
Metadata
and
Indicators
Some NISO work in these area

22. A Few Key Concepts
In identification & description
(identifiers & metadata)

23. The thing
being
identified
The Referent

24. The string
identifying
the referent
The Identifier

25. The data
that
describes
the referent
The Metadata

26. Identifiers can be but are not necessarily names
(often better if they aren’t)
IDs can be but need not be human-readable.
They also may or may not be human
understandable.
Not every attribute need be described
An ID & its metadata

27. Functional Granularity

28. Functional Granularity

29. Functional Granularity

30. Functional Granularity

31. Functional Granularity

32. Functional Granularity

33. Functional Granularity

34. You identify and describe
an item at the level
at which it makes sense
for your business needs
to identify that item
Functional Granularity

35. A lesson in functional granularity

36. Functional Requirements for
Bibliographic Records (FRBR)

37. <indecs> description model

38. How it fits together in a
complex media ecosystem
ISWC
ISRCISTC
ISBN
ISSN
CSI
ISMN
ISAN
ISAN
IPI
IPI
ISNI
VIAF IPDA
DOI
DOI

39. Making the
Theoretical
Practical

40. So are
these things
the same
or not?
Revising the ISBN

41. Managing metadata well
is expensive

42. Managing metadata
poorly
is more expensive
(often in ways you can’t measure)

43. On the horizon

44. Non-­‐Textual
Content

45. Linked
Open
Data

46. Scientific Data

47. Digital Preservation

48. Altmetrics

49. We all want our own

50. Thank you!
Todd Carpenter, Executive Director
tcarpenter@niso.org
National Information Standards Organization (NISO)
3600 Clipper Mill Road, Suite 302
Baltimore, MD 21211 USA
+1 (301) 654-2512
www.niso.org