ALA Session on July 10 to Reveal Next Steps in ERM Standards Work

["Cynthia Hodgson" <chodgson@niso.org>]

If you're a user of Electronic Resource Management Systems or 
have been following the past work of the Digital Library 
Federation's ERMI project, be sure to attend the session at the 
ALA conference of the LITA/ALCTS Electronic Resources Management 
(ERM) Interest Group on:

Friday, July 10, 2009
6:30 - 8:30 p.m.
at the Palmer House, Chicago Room

Ivy Anderson, Director of Collections, California Digital 
Library, will present on the new NISO project: a "Gap Analysis of 
ERM-related Data and Standards." This project is an outgrowth of 
the Digital Library Federation's Electronic Resource Management 
Initiative (ERMI), first begun in 2002. A second phase of the 
Initiative was completed in late 2008. In follow-up discussions 
between Todd Carpenter, NISO's Managing Director, and Peter 
Brantley, Executive Director of DLF, regarding the future of 
ERMI, NISO agreed to perform a needs assessment with respect to 
ERMI and broader ERM-related data needs and standards, and to 
assume any appropriate maintenance responsibilities.

A subgroup of NISO's Business Information Topic Committee was 
tasked with surveying this landscape to determine what, if any, 
further steps should be undertaken by NISO. This new project is 
an outcome of the ERMI landscape review and proposes next steps 
in this area. The analysis will 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.). Vendors, libraries using ERM 
systems, and other identified stakeholders will then be consulted 
via surveys and/or more in-depth interviews to solicit additional 
feedback. The deliverable will be a report for the Business 
Information Topic Committee highlighting current work that 
provides solutions for specific areas of ERM use, identifies gaps 
where work has not been done, and recommends appropriate further 
work. The report is expected to be completed by April 2010. Ms. 
Anderson will provide more details on the project in her 
presentation and discuss how you can become involved or follow 
the project's work.

Other scheduled speakers and topics at this LITA/ALCTS session 
are:

The Library as Strategic Investment: Results of the Illinois 
Return on Investment Study -- Paula Kaufman, University Librarian 
and Dean of Libraries, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Results of OpenURL Quality Investigation -- Adam Chandler, 
Database Management and Electronic Resources Librarian, Library 
Technical Services, Cornell University Library

The Portico Archive: Helping libraries make a secure transition 
to a reliance on digital scholarship --Kenneth DiFiore, Associate 
Director, Portico | JSTOR

Serials Solutions Open Source SUSHI-COUNTER Client -- Tae Kim, 
Software Developer at Serials Solutions, and working group member 
of the SUSHI maintenance committee (See press release at: 
http://www.niso.org/news/pr/view?item_key=fbed9624fd63a4aa633c99eb9133c26843d4931f)

Cynthia Hodgson
NISO Technical Editor Consultant
National Information Standards Organization
Email: chodgson@niso.org
Phone: 301-654-2512