Jisc makes its metadata openly available under a CC0 licence in order to facilitate interoperability and the sharing of data between a variety of library management systems and discovery tools. It does so in a structured format in accordance with the requirements of agreed data models, defined standards and recommendations for the structure of e-resource information (e.g. COUNTER, ONIX-PL and KBART). This ensures that all parts of a library’s supply chain have access to all the information they need, whenever they need it. Jisc also aims to avoid duplication of effort by facilitating and encouraging the use and re-use of metadata, including by system vendors. However, while system vendors have embraced this option, their use has not been optimised thus far.
In order for libraries to have access to these datasets and fully exploit the functionalities of the systems in use, KB+ on behalf of Jisc, together with other non-commercial, national knowledge bases, ERDB-JP (Japan), ABES-BACON (France) and Bibsam (Sweden) have published an Open Letter to system vendors. The objective is to encourage a constructive dialogue to be able to maximise the impact of the metadata provided. The letter covers some key areas including the availability of metadata in their systems with recognition of the source e.g. KB+ and alerting features for users around updates to vendors’ knowledge bases. A request to receive an annual report of knowledge base usage is also included in the letter.
You can read the full text of the open letter on the KB+ website.
