SCELC and Emerging Standards

1. SCELC and Emerging Standards Rick Burke, Executive Director, SCELC ALCTS Continuing Resources Section Standards Committee Update Forum January 17, 2010

2. E-Resource Acquisition Challenges • Legacy systems, such as the ILS, are not designed for managing e-resource acquisitions effectively • Newer systems, specifically ERM systems, have yet to realize their full potential, or provide for the standard interchange of data traditionally available in the ILS environment • New standards, such as ONIX-PL and NISO CORE, provide the potential to help resolve outstanding e-resource management issues • A library consortium, such as SCELC, manages licenses for over 2000 different databases and wants to promote solutions to e-resource management problems

3. E-Resource Acquisition Challenges The challenge: How can the consortium take a role in promoting new standards to enable more effective e-resource management? And why?

4. What is SCELC? • The Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium • Founded in 1986 • Works with 105 private academic and research libraries throughout California to: • License electronic resources • Share information and expertise • Provide reciprocal borrowing and interlibrary loan cooperation among members

5. Why SCELC and ONIX-PL? • SCELC provides a consortial ERMS for its members as a membership benefit • The ERMS contains the license terms for most of the SCELC contracts • ERMS provides a means for linking terms to the actual resources • However, license terms have to be entered manually into the ERMS

6. SCELC Consortial ERMS Why did SCELC undertake the creation of a consortial ERMS? • To make visible and accessible our consortial contracts • Will expose data now contained in our local database (“WISDOM”) • Provides end-user access to Vendor contacts, subscriber and product information • License Terms • Meets vendor request for providing license terms and conditions to end users

7. SCELC Consortial ERMS • Encourages cooperative collection development • Can readily view which products are offered through SCELC • Provides access to shared library data on electronic resource holdings • Can be a guide to acquisition decisions for databases on multiple platforms, e.g., APA databases

8. License Details in ERMS • The next two slides illustrate some of the license terms stored in the ERMS for each license • These terms are labeled according to the DLF ERMI data elements for describing license terms • The ultimate goal is to take advantage of the ONIX-PL encoding of the entire license, and be able to access its content in context

9. License Details in ERMSSample View

10. License Details in ERMSSample View (2)

11. Goals of ONIX-PL • ONIX-PL = ONIX for Publications Licenses • Express licenses in a machine-readable format • Load them seamlessly into electronic resource management systems • Link them to digital resources • Communicate key usage terms to users

12. The Promise of ONIX-PL • ONIX-PL would eliminate mapping and manual entry of license terms • Publishers would deliver machine readable license information in a standardized way via XML • Expands on DLF-ERMI with the new ONIX for Licensing Terms format • Direct feed to the ERMS eliminates tedious input • Would improve user interface for easily accessing terms

13. Negotiation of License Terms • ONIX-PL holds the promise of simplifying the process of license negotiation • On paper, every license format is different • Once mapped in ONIX-PL, it will be quicker and easier to identify key terms subject to negotiation and make any necessary changes • Libraries and consortia need a tool to implement the exchange of XML license data seamlessly with the licensor, which is the OPLE

14. ONIX-PL Editing Tool(OPLE) • OPLE is a browser-based software tool which enables users to create and edit ONIX-PL expressions • Offered free of charge as Open Source software • Available at http://www.editeur.org/22/OPLE-Software/ • JISC (UK Higher Education Funding Council) and PLS (Publishers Licensing Society) co-funded and helped Editeur to develop an early version of ONIX-PL Editor (OPLE) to map licenses to ONIX-PL

15. The SCELC ONIX-PL Pilot • SCELC is piloting ONIX-PL, working with EDItEUR, the ONIX-PL developers • http://www.editeur.org/onix_licensing.html • The following publishers allowed their licenses to be encoded for the test phase: • Springer, OUP, Nature Publishing Group, Elsevier, and possibly others) • A library services vendor, Serials Solutions, will likely add ONIX-PL support to their ERMS when and if the standard is adopted

16. ONIX-PL Web Interface • The demonstration ONIX-PL web page of the Springer license effectively demonstrates this project’s potential • An improvement on our ERM interface, it provides effective access to the license for all parties, including end users • The OPLE will provide the facility to generate the subsequent web summaries at any stage of license mapping

17. Compare to the License Details display in the previous ERMS slides

19. Impediments to ONIX-PL Adoption • Encoding a license is time-consuming and requires knowledge of XML • Encoding also requires careful interpretation of legal language as it is made to fit into an ONIX-PL template • Publishers lack the staff and/or technical skill to provide ONIX-PL versions of their licenses • Third parties, such as subscription agents, may be reluctant to encode licenses, fearing possible legal repercussions due to potential misinterpretation of license language

20. NISO CORE • Another emerging standard • CORE = Cost of Resource Exchange • Facilitates exchange of cost, fund, vendor and invoice information between an ILS, business systems (such as SCELC’s WISDOM system), an ERMS, and other third parties, such as subscription agents • Working group drafted standard in 2008-2009, and CORE trials are now underway

21. NISO CORE • Two goals of the draft standard: • Develop and refine the list of data elements holding acquisitions metadata, utilizing XML • Create a transport protocol to move these data elements from one system to another • Should this standard be adopted, it could be the missing link that resolves the current need to re-enter redundant data in multiple systems

22. NISO CORE • For more information on NISO CORE and to view the draft standard, go to • http://www.niso.org/workrooms/core • To participate in a trial, go to: • http://www.niso.org/workrooms/core/trial

23. Summary • ONIX-PL provides the best possibility for simplifying a cumbersome licensing process and improving ERMS functionality • Publishers lacking the capability of producing an XML version of their license could consider working with subscription agents or other third parties to provide this service • It fulfills a critical need - a universally acceptable standard for formatting and delivering license information for all parties: libraries, consortia, and publishers

24. Summary • NISO CORE has the potential to solve the other outstanding issue in e-resource management: how to effectively and seamlessly share e-resource acquisition data between different systems • SCELC, with its commitment to licensing a large number of e-resources, is also committed to the promotion of standards that will improve the licensing experience

25. Contact Information Rick Burke rburke@scelc.org http://scelc.org