Information Standards Quarterly, Winter 2011

I am very pleased to announce that beginning with this issue, Information Standards Quarterly will be available in open access. Individual articles and the full issue can be downloaded in PDF format from the NISO website (www.niso.org/publications/isq).

NISO is already unique among standards developing organizations in that it makes all of its standards and recommended practices available free to the public. Adding ISQ to that mix will enhance the visibility and reach of the work of our community. We will also be migrating the backfiles of ISQ to open access this year as well as converting older issues to electronic format to add to the open access archives.

This free dissemination of NISO’s standards and publications is only possible through the generous support of our members. It is their member dues that fund NISO’s work. We have been fortunate that even in difficult economic times, most of our members have continued their support and we’ve even added some. If NISO’s work is valuable to your organization, consider becoming a member to ensure that this work continues. For more information, go to www.niso.org/about/join/.

This issue of ISQ is our annual year in review. There is much to report as NISO had a very busy year with 16 active working groups or standing committees in addition to NISO’s Architecture and Topic Committees who manage this work and develop new initiatives. Karen Wetzel summarizes their 2010 work in our main feature article. This is followed by a synopsis of the work of the ISO Technical Committee 46 on Information and Documentation, for which NISO is the U.S. administrator. Last year saw a surge in the implementations of the SUSHI protocol that is now part of the compliance requirements for COUNTER’s Code of Practice. Two of those implementers share their experiences: Omar Villa from Groupo Integra describes a SUSHI client implementation and Brinda Shah from H.W. Wilson represents the server side. Andrew Pace from OCLC, a long-time participant in NISO’s work, explains why he is dedicated to standards and why you should be too.

In our Spotlight section, Phil Norman and Jeff Young, also from OCLC, tell how the OpenURL maintenance agency is working to extend and promote the use of the OpenURL standard for new and innovative applications. Linda Beebe provides a member spotlight on her organization, the American Psychological Association, and how they use standards throughout their product lines. Three members of the NISO ESPReSSO working group—Heather Ruland Staines (Springer), Harry Kaplanian (Serials Solutions), and Kristine Ferry (University of California, Irvine)— provide a report on their development of a recommended practice for improving single sign-on authentication to licensed or protected content. We wrap up this issue with our annual State of the Standards portfolio, listing all of NISO’s published standards, recommended practices, and technical reports as well as the status of all the in-development work.

If this is your first time in reading ISQ, I hope you find it both informative and educational and will recommend it to your colleagues.