NISO ERM Data Standards and Best Practices Review
Quarterly Report, 6/30/2010
(Covers 6 month period: 1/2010 through 6/2010)
1. Group Charge: to undertake a "gap analysis" regarding electronic resource management
(ERM) related data, standards, and best practices.
2. Working group roster, as of 6/30/2010:
 Ivy Anderson (California Digital Library), co-chair
 Tim Jewell (University of Washington), co-chair
 Jeff Aipperspach (Serials Solutions)
 Jeannie Downey Castro (University of Houston)
 Deberah England (Wright State University)
 Rafal Kasprowski (Rice University)
 Tim McGeary (Lehigh University)
 Bob McQuillan (Innovative Interfaces, Inc.); joined in April
 Angela Riggio (UCLA)
Note: Kathryn Harnish from ExLibris resigned from the committee effective with her
departure from ExLibris in April; ExLibris has been contacted about a replacement but has
not yet suggested one.
3. Meeting Schedule: Conference calls have generally been held every other week during the
year
4. Status of Current Work:
a) Standards Mapping. As described in the “gap analysis” project overview, it was to “. . .
begin with a review of the ERMI data dictionary as it presently exists, and a mapping of
ERMI data elements to those within relevant standards-related projects (e.g., CORE,
SUSHI, ONIX-PL, etc.).” Since the project began, a number of relevant standards and
best practices have been identified and assigned to steering committee member
volunteers, especially to “identify areas of overlap between a given standard or best
practice and the ERMI Data Dictionary.” Following the initial mapping, it was determined
that Working Group members would review the details of each one and discuss how to
evaluate findings and most important conclusions reached.
More specifically, volunteers were asked to “map” data elements from these standards
to the ERM data dictionary and address the following issues:
1. Which elements in the standard correspond to elements in the ERMI Data
Dictionary (“DD”):
a. Is the meaning of the element identical, or partial? (Partial =
differences in the meaning of the data element that limit
interoperability)
b. If partial, how should the differences be resolved?
i. change definition of ERMI element
ii. change definition of standard element
iii. retain differences - meanings are similar but both are valid
2. Which elements in the standard are not covered by the ERMI DD, and which
ERMI elements are not covered by the standard, for the functional area in
question?
a. for those elements, which should be incorporated in the other (i.e. in
ERMI or in the relevant standard, as appropriate)?
3. What gap areas exist, if any, in either ERMI or the relevant standard from the
perspective of e-resource management? That is, from your review, can you
identify specific issues that remain unaddressed?
4. Based on your analysis, is there a need for an ERMI Data Dictionary to
address this area, or is the relevant standard (including any suggestions for
revision) sufficient to address library e-resource management needs?
Mapping work substantially done by rough function, with selected notes:
1. Description:

MARC. ERMI work was based on the idea of a fully interoperable ERM
system, and since MARC was carefully reviewed during construction of
the ERMI Data Dictionary, there is close correspondence between them.
The ERMS requires basic descriptive metadata to properly identify an
electronic product and distinguish it from other electronic products, and
this metadata should be inherited from a corresponding bibliographic
record. An ERMS should be equipped to capture metadata related to
previous and subsequent platforms and providers (drops, adds, etc.)
which is beyond the scope of the MARC format.

Project TRANSFER. Should help address problem noted above.

ONIX-SOH (Serials Online Holdings), SRN (Serials Release Notification),
SPS (Serials Products and Services). These standards’ ontological
structures make them flexible and extensible but hard to compare them to
the ERMI DD. Nevertheless, detailed comparisons done and specific
recommendations for many data elements made.
2. Cost per use and evaluation

COUNTER. This is now a well-defined and accepted standard, whereas
the relevant ERMI fields are more limited. For example, the ERMI DD
provides for summary holdings, and COUNTER/SUSHI greater
granularity.

SUSHI. Since COUNTER 3.0 requires adoption of SUSHI, this is an
important protocol, but since it is primarily a mechanism for transferring
data, it may not need to be included in the data dictionary.

CORE. Had been in Draft Standard for Trial Use status until this spring,
when it was recommended that it be considered a recommended practice
for the time being. CORE may help address some naming inconsistencies
(e.g., publisher/content provider; title/journal, medium, platform, etc.).
Detailed recommendations for specific elements made.
3. License-related
 ONIX-PL. EditEUR published ONIX-PL to ERMI and ERMI to ONIX-PL
mappings in 2007, and in March 2010 the ERM Review group organized
them into Excel spreadsheets. In April 2010, EditEUR provided an update
to the previous mapping versions, and the working group's mapping effort
will incorporate these recent changes. The ERM Review group will create
mappings in both directions - as did EditEUR in 2007 - to identify
problems with ONIX-PL or ERMI more clearly and be in a better position
to propose meaningful suggestions towards a practical automated license
expression system.
There continues to be interest in ONIX-PL among different communities,
but uptake has been slow, and due to its potential importance, Mark Bide
from EditEUR discussed its current status and prospects with the working
group during a conference call and provided a slide set used recently for
presentations. Based on workshop attendance in the UK, interest in
ONIX-PL has been growing. However, working group members continue
to question its “fit” with library needs and will discuss it further vs. an
alternative “ERMI-lite” or other approaches.

SERU.
4. Authentication, “Other”

Shibboleth. Special attention paid to Appendix A2: User Groups.
b) Surveys and Interviewing. For this part of the project, “Vendors, libraries using ERM
systems, and other identified stakeholders will … be consulted via surveys and/or more
in-depth interviews to solicit additional feedback concerning data requirements and ERM
system implementation and management issues.”
The focus of this part of the project is on determining libraries’ current assessments of
need/priority.
Work done to date:

A “survey subgroup” consisting of Jeff Aipperspach, Deberah England, Tim
Jewell and Tim McGeary was formed, and substantial time devoted to identifying
and assimilating the results of the numerous (over a dozen) ERM-related surveys
conducted within the past few years.

Of particular interest is a survey conducted for and reported on in the April 2010
issue of Against the Grain, which included separate rating scales for satisfaction
with and importance of ERM system functionality; it may be possible to
collaborate with them on future, more focused ERM surveys.

Areas of interest identified so far by the subgroup are:
o
o
o
o
o
Cost of usage
Consortial needs and applications
System implementation and usability problems
Electronic Books
Workflows and internal communication. This prompted a separate and
ongoing effort to identify examples of useful internal workflow documents;
20 identified and placed in workroom folder to date.
c) Outreach and Presentations, through June 30th, 2010 (in chronological order):
Electronic Resources & Libraries, Feb. 1, Austin TX: Tim Jewell presented session “The
NISO ERM Data Standards and Best Practices Review”
NISO 1 hour open conference call on project: March 8th: Tim J. gave overview of goals
and status, followed by Q & A.
Biblio Kartog (March 15-18, Leipzig; http://www.bid-kongress2010.de/): Jeff Aipperspach
contacted and spoke with range of consortia and Europe-based vendors regarding ERM
issues.
ICOLC, April 18-21. Chicago: Ivy Anderson helped organize and facilitated 2 discussions
of consortial ERM needs and current practice.
Innovative Users Group Conference (April 19-21, Chicago): Deberah England held a
“Birds of a Feather” discussion group session “ERMI Redux: NISO’s ERM Data
Standards and Best Practices Review” and presented a program on ONIX-PL and
ERMS: “Demystifying License Mapping: ERM and the Promise of ONIX-PL”
Ohio Valley Group of Technical Services Librarians (OVGTSL), May 20, Morehead KY:
Deberah England presented program on project activities and goals: “Envisioning the
Future of ERM: NISO’s ERM Data Standards and Best Practices Review”
Kuali OLE meetings: Tim McGeary has participated regularly in conference calls and
other group activities and continues to serve as a go-between for the two projects.
NASIG (June 3d-6th, Palm Springs CA): Jeff Aipperspach and Angela Riggio organized a
breakout session on the project.
American Library Association Conference, June 25-28, Washington DC: Karen Wetzel
distributed copies of a 1 page project description/status report and Rafal Kasprowski
provided a brief project status report for the ALCTS/LITA ERM Interest Group; Bob
McQuillan highlighted the group’s work during his presentation for the NISO-sponsored
program on “Three S’s of Electronic Resource Management”
(http://www.niso.org/news/events/2010/ala2010/)
Additional outreach and contact notes:

An email list for interested people has been established but used infrequently
so far.

OCLC contacted for and supplied contact name for their ERM plans in
context of their Web-scale Management Services initiative; ARL contacted
regarding any current discussion of an updated ERM SPEC Kit; EBSCO,
JISC contacted on shareable workflow documents and status of license
coding project; Eric Hartnett (Texas A&M) contacted Tim regarding
desirability of a vendor-library problem contact protocol; Jason Price
(Claremont) contacted Tim regarding use of “trouble ticket” software for ERM
applications there and at Stanford.

Other developments noted: release of CORAL (Notre Dame Univ. Library’s
open source ERM); 3d release of ERMes (Univ. of Wisconsin-La Crosse’s
open source ERM).
5. Timeline information (including any upcoming group deadlines). Additional work
needing to be scheduled and undertaken or completed:
a) Mapping:




DOI (Angela, Jeannie; work begun, about ½ complete)
I2 (Deberah)
KBART (Deberah, Ivy)
vCard (Ivy; work about ¾ complete)

May also be of potential interest:
o Open URL Quality Metrics
o Recommended Practices for the Presentation and Identification of
E-Journals

Consolidation, integration of mapping findings (will organize series of
detailed conference call discussions focusing on all mapping work,
develop overview)
b) Survey and interview work: “formulate a plan”
c) Presentation and Outreach (plans so far, through June 30th, 2011)
NISO ERM Conference (Boston, Oct. 7): Tim Jewell will make a presentation on the
project.
Eastern Great Lakes IUG regional conference (Ohio, October); Deberah working on
developing an ERM session
Possible repeat of “Three S’s of Electronic Resource Management” program as a
webinar under ALA/ALCTS auspices during fall
d) Final report. According to project description, “Following analysis of survey and
interview results, the working group will:

make recommendations regarding the future of the ERMI data dictionary within
that broader context,

describe typical challenges libraries face in using currently available ERM
systems and services, and identify gaps in interoperability and best practices.
The results are to be delivered in a report to the Business Information Topic
Committee and made publicly available.
6. Specific areas needing Topic/Architecture Committee and/or NISO Office support,
review, or participation/promotion
7. Any open strategic questions for consideration
8. Developing issues in community for discussion
9. Review items that were open from last report