Making E-serials holdings data transferable: Applying the KBART recommended practice

Abstract

The Knowledge Bases and Related Tools (KBART) project is an initiative of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and the United Kingdom Serials Group (UKSG), and has established a set of best practices for the exchange of electronic resource holdings metadata between content providers and knowledgebase developers. The benefits of KBART are that it relieves information professionals from the time-consuming process of actively reconciling e-journal title lists, and addresses the many inadequacies which are common in title holdings lists. As of June 1,2010, KBART has been endorsed by the American Institute of Physics, Ex Libris, Serials Solutions, and the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). Information professionals can facilitate the further endorsement of KBART by requesting accurate holdings lists from providers up front and referring providers to the KBART recommendations to encourage broader adoption of these best practices. Looking forward, the KBART Working Group hopes to achieve universal acceptance of these best practices and the expansion of the practice to more varied electronic resource formats. © The North American Serials Interest Group.