From: NISO <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2015 14:12:13 -0500


The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) announces the
publication of a special themed issue of Information Standards
Quarterly (ISQ) on the topic of Licensing of Digital Content.
Licensing of digital content has been a complex—and contentious—issue
since the advent of the first e-journal. While much understanding and
experience has been gained since then, greater diversity in types of
e-content and technology advances continuously add new challenges to
licensing. This issue of ISQ discusses the current state of e-content
licensing, standards and tools to aid in the licensing process, and
two projects aimed at improving rights management and providing an
alternative to standard licenses.

Ann Okerson provides her Reflections on Library Licensing, describing
both the advancements that have occurred in digital content licensing
over the past decade and the remaining and new challenges that we need
to address.

David Martin authors a standard spotlight on the ONIX for Publication
Licenses specification from EDItEUR. While this standard has been
around for over five years, several recent developments may help make
its adoption finally take off.

The Linked Content Coalition is a relatively new project created by a
global consortium of standards bodies and registries. While not
explicitly about licensing, the identifiers and metadata related to
usage rights that they expound are critical to the ability for
machines to manage, distribute, and display rights and licensing
information. Todd Carpenter discusses how the group aims to make it
possible to manage and access online rights information seamlessly
across all types of media.

NISO’s Shared Electronic Resource Understanding (SERU) recommended
practice, presented as an alternative to a formal licensing
negotiation, was updated in 2012 to expand its use beyond e-journals.
Adam Chesler and Anne McKee review in SERU: Six Years and Still Going
Strong, how this approach continues to grow in use.

ISQ is available in open access in electronic format on the NISO
website. Both the entire issue on Open Access Infrastructure and the
individual articles may be freely downloaded. Print copies of ISQ are
available by subscription and as print on demand. For more information
and to access the free electronic version, visit:

www.niso.org/publications/isq.

Cynthia Hodgson
ISQ Managing Editor
National Information Standards Organization
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