From: NISO Announce <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2015 18:02:32 -0400


The Association of Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS)
division of the American Library Association has published a new book
edited by Todd A. Carpenter, the Executive Director of the National
Information Standards Organization (NISO). The Critical Component:
Standards in the Information Exchange Environment explores the process
of developing information standards, the value of standards for
libraries, publishing and the intermediaries that serve both
communities. The book is published by ALCTS Publishing and is
available in both print and electronic-book format. Carpenter, Nettie
Lagace, NISO's Associate Director for Programs, and Cynthia Hodgson,
recently retired NISO Editor, all contributed chapters to this
publication.

"Although we rely on standards every day to access, retrieve, and
display digital content, few understand how these critical components
in that process are developed or deployed," said Carpenter describing
the book's aims. "Many people have commented to me that the
development of standards is a procedural 'black box' -something that
is difficult to comprehend or navigate. By creating this work, we hope
to illuminate that process as well as describe the necessary role that
standards play in our digital content ecosystem."

"As the first ALCTS Monograph, this publication sets a high bar of
content and form for the series, including a newly accessible epub
format for our publication program," said Jeanne Drewes, ALCTS
Monographs Editor. The idea for this book came from the NISO emails
that I had received over the years from Cindy Hepfer, then the ALCTS
representative to NISO. Her "standards" outreach to the library
community was the seed for the need and she was instrumental in
connecting ALCTS to the NISO team that brought this idea into
reality."

The book includes chapters on: the overall need for standards in
content distribution; the formality of standards; the process and
players involved in standards development; the description of
information objects, digital preservation, identifiers, marketing
standards, getting involved in the process as well as the future needs
for information standards. Following each chapter is a case study
describing real-world implications of these themes.

In addition to Carpenter, Lagace, and Hodgson, many esteemed industry
thought-leaders contributed to the book including:

Norman Paskin, International DOI Foundation
Regina Romano Reynolds, Library of Congress
Diane I. Hillmann, Metadata Management Associates
Lisa Gregory, North Carolina Digital Heritage Center
Bill Kasdorf, Apex Content Solutions
Janifer Gatenby, OCLC
Adam Chandler, Cornell University Library
George Kerscher, DAISY Consortium
Laura Dawson, ProQuest
Marshall Breeding, Library Technology Guides Founder & Editor
Ted Koppel, Auto-Graphics
Kate Witteberg, Portico

and many others.

"In fact, everyone who inhabits any sector of the global information
ecosystem should be interested in and at least minimally knowledgeable
about standards. Twenty-first century libraries, information services
and publications of all kinds simply wouldn't be usable without the
support of standards," wrote Cindy Hepfer, recently retired librarian
at State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo, in her
Introduction.

The Critical Component: Standards in the Information Exchange
Environment is now available in print (ISBN13: 978-0-8389-8744-5) from
the ALA Annual Conference Store in San Francisco and from the ALA
Store online:

http://www.alastore.ala.org/detail.aspx?ID=11483.

Review copies are available by contacting the Christine McConnell in
the ALCTS office at [log in to unmask] A PDF ebook (ISBN:
978-0-8389-8745-2) and EPUB (ISBN: 978-0-8389-8746-9) bundle will be
available in mid-July through the ALA Store online.