The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) announces the publication of Making Good on the Promise of ERM: A Standards and Best Practices Discussion Paper. This publication is the outcome of the NISO Electronic Resource Management (ERM) Data Standards and Best Practices Project, a successor to the Digital Library Federation’s Electronic Resources Management Initiative (ERMI). The project’s primary goals were to perform a “gap analysis” of standards and best practices and make recommendations on the future of the ERMI Data Dictionary.
“Our standards review and findings focused on five categories: link resolvers and knowledge bases; the work, manifestations, and access points; cost and usage-related data; license terms; and data exchange using institutional identifiers,” states Tim Jewell, Director, Information Resources and Scholarly Communications, University of Washington, and Chair of the ERM Data Standards and Best Practices Review Steering Committee. “We did a more extensive review of fourteen of the most relevant standards and mapped the data elements for each to the elements defined in the ERMI report. We also looked at how ERM systems could improve their workflow support-a shortcoming in most existing systems-and we include a detailed workflow best practices bibliography and a list of illustrative workflow diagrams.”
“Our final analysis showed that there is value to updating and maintaining a data dictionary that encompasses ERM functions and evolves with technologies and business models,” maintains Ivy Anderson, Director of Collections, California Digital Library and member of the ERM Data Standards and Best Practices Review Steering Committee. “However, for practical considerations, we did not recommend that NISO pursue such a project at this time. Instead we identified a number of narrower initiatives targeting specific ERM functional needs and strategies aimed at furthering interoperability.”
“The ERM Steering Committee has produced a valuable analysis and evaluation of the current state of standards and best practices that can be applied to ERM systems,” concludes Todd Carpenter, NISO Managing Director. “They’ve also identified a number of worthwhile initiatives for NISO to consider that would improve the use and interoperability of ERM.”
Making Good on the Promise of ERM is available for free download from the NISO website at:www.niso.org/publications/white_papers/.
