NISO finalizes recommended practice on e-book metadata

NISO (National Information Standards Organization) has released a new NISO Recommended practice, Bibliographic metadata requirements for e-books in the supply chain of sale, publication, discovery, delivery and preservation. It incorporates feedback from publishers, retailers, libraries, service providers, preservation agencies and other stakeholders.

NISO declares the following:

The recommended practice focuses on several key areas for e-book metadata – defining minimum requirements for sales, discovery, delivery, e-holdings management, and preservation; identify the best way to pass metadata through the supply chain; title and fund updates; developing rules for e-book metadata deduplication; and share a variety of examples of implementing best practices.

The recommended practice focuses on key metadata elements (titles, names, dates, book identifiers, and subjects) to enable basic eBook metadata functions that apply to all stakeholder organizations: identify a book , match records for the same book or version, and distinguish records that refer to different books or versions. The aim is to provide principles and examples that support a shared understanding and, where possible, alignment of eBook metadata practices across sectors, complementing existing eBook best practices and guidelines, such as those published by BISG, EDITEUR and W3C.

For more information, read the Press release.