This presentation was provided by Noah Levin, NISO KBART Standing Committee Co-Chair, Dominic Benson of Brunel University London, Ben Johnson of ProQuest/Ex Libris, Robert Heaton of Utah State University Libraries, and Andrée Rathemacher of The University of Rhode Island Libraries, during the NISO Event "KBART 101: An Introduction to Knowledgebases and KB Data Best Practices for the Library Industry," held on March 11, 2019.

1. KBART 101
AN INTRODUCTION TO KNOWLEDGEBASES AND KB DATA
BEST PRACTICES FOR THE LIBRARY INDUSTRY

2. Introductions
Noah Levin
KBART Standing Committee Co-Chair
noah.levin626@gmail.com
Dominic Benson
Analytics and Discovery Officer, Brunel University London
dominic.benson@brunel.ac.uk
Ben Johnson
Provider Relations Engagement Manager, ProQuest/Ex Libris
benjamin.johnson@proquest.com
Robert Heaton
Collection Management Librarian, Utah State University Libraries
robert.heaton@usu.edu
Andrée Rathemacher
Head, Acquisitions, University of Rhode Island Libraries
andree@uri.edu

3. Agenda
• KBART Basics
• History
• The KBART Standing Committee
• Knowledge base data supply chain
• The value of KBART
• Supply chain perspectives
• KBART Endorsement and the KBART Registry
• What’s next for KBART
• Additional Resources

4. What is KBART?
Knowledge Bases And
Related Tools
UKSG/NISO Working
group (2007–2014)
NISO Standing
Committee
(2014–present)

5. (Very brief) history of KBART
James Culling’s 2007 UKSG Report
◦ “Link Resolvers and the Serials Supply Chain”
◦ http://web.archive.org/web/20160306033106/http://www.uksg.org/projects/linkfinal
KBART aim: Develop a recommended practice to ensure the timely
transfer of accurate data to knowledge bases and link resolver providers
Phase 1 – Completed in 2010
◦ Main focus was on metadata for serials
Phase 2 – Completed in 2014
◦ Build on Phase 1 recommendations
◦ Focus on e-book, Open Access, and consortial metadata

6. Who is the KBART
Committee?
Cross-industry
Information professionals
Working together
… is easier

7. KBART administration
• Dominic Benson, Brunel
University of London
• Noah Levin
Co-chairs:
• Nettie Lagace, Associate
Director for Programs
NISO
representative:

8. KBART standing committee
Content Providers
•Noah Levin (Springer)
•Jonathan Ponder (ITHAKA /
JSTOR / Portico)
Knowledgebase Vendors
•Sheri Meares (EBSCO
Information Services)
•Christine Stohn (Ex Libris)
•Ben Johnson (ProQuest)
•Mark Calkins (OCLC)
Librarians
•Dominic Benson (Brunel
University London)
•Robert Heaton (Utah State
University)
•Andrée Rathemacher
(University of Rhode Island)
•Benjamin Bober (ABES /
Agence Bibliographique de
l'Enseignement Supérieur)
•Jason Friedman (CRKN)
•Courtney Bremer (University
of Waterloo Library)

9. Why KBART?

10. Knowledge bases
Titles and
Packages
Resource
Management
Discovery Linking

11. Knowledge base supply chain
KB vendors are
dependent upon
content providers
for the data in
knowledge bases
Vendors acquire
data
• From libraries
• Provider website
• Files sent to vendor
• Automated delivery
Vendor ingests
metadata into KB
• Extracts data
• Transforms data
• Loads data
Libraries use KB
data to manage,
discover, and
connect to
resources they
pay for
Content Provider KB Vendor Library

12. What is a content provider?
Content Provider (or just Provider) is an
organization that provides access to online
content, either paid or free
•DOAJ, DOAB,
ROAR,
OpenDOAR, etc.
•EBSCO,
ProQuest, Gale,
etc.
•Archive
•Repository
•IEEE, Gale, T&F,
Springer, etc.
Publisher
Library or
consortium
Open
Access
Portal
Aggregator

13. What is a vendor?
A vendor is an organization that
creates library systems products
and services (using KBs)

14. What is KBART?
Recommendations for the transmission of data to
knowledgebases (KBs)
Title and package data of electronic
serials and books
Purchased/leased/accessed by libraries
Transparency of data exchanged

15. KBART sample

16. Why adopt KBART
guidelines?
Improve usage and discovery of content
◦ OpenURL link resolvers and discovery services rely on publisher-supplied
knowledge base data
◦ Accurate data increases exposure and usage of full-text content and leads to
better interoperability and access
Universally accepted data format
◦ Provides a standardized way to exchange and update product-availability
details across the supply chain
◦ Human-readable title list for marketing and product information
Immediate return on investment
◦ Single source where content providers can refer knowledge base providers,
aggregators, consortia, and libraries

17. Three perspectives on the
value of KBART

18. Content provider perspective
Discovery and Good Metadata = $$$$
◦ If customers can’t find and access what they purchased then usage
disappears
Let the customer know what they purchased!
◦ The department that made the purchase is often not the same group that
manages the content and data
Support the purchase of content by providing appropriate data
Provide widespread access to data
◦ Send to knowledge bases
◦ Public access to title lists

19. Content provider challenges
Legacy systems
Prioritization within the organization
◦ Convincing management of KBART’s importance
◦ Getting on an IT/technical roadmap
Data clean-up efforts that will make you cry
Staying ahead of the curve

20. KB vendor challenges
Building relationships with content providers
Gathering data (varied formats, accuracy, consistency, and
completeness)
Validating, correcting, and enriching the data
Converting it to the internal knowledge base format
Performing quality assurance
Keeping the knowledge base current

21. Why is KBART important to
vendors?
KBART provides a common format and schedule for data to be supplied
◦ Lower risk of errors
◦ Timely updates
◦ Reduced effort required to compare and correct common data
Vendors work with data from thousands of providers
◦ De-duplicate results for the same title
◦ New York Times / N. Y. Times / New York Times (Late New York Edition) = New York Times
◦ Disambiguate
◦ Times (London, England : 1788) / Times (Gainesville, Ga.) / Times (Charleston, S.C.)
Enables vendors to focus on enhancing and enriching the data within
the knowledge base

22. Library perspective
KB
Link
Resolver
MARC
Records
ERMS
Discovery
Index

23. Library perspective
Errors and inconsistencies in knowledge base data cause services to
break down

24. Library perspective
Better data leads to a better user experience

25. Library perspective
KBART files are a good source of well-formatted data describing content
libraries have purchased

26. Advice from librarians:
Make sure KBART files match
products on offer
Journal package A
Contains all titles, 1997–present
Journal package B
Contains humanities titles, 1997–present
Journal package C
Contains social sciences titles, 1997–present
Journal package D
Contains backfile of all titles through 1996
Publisher X’s journal packages: Choices offered on library’s KB vendor site:
Publisher X Journals
All journal titles with coverage for all
years on publisher platform
Instead of selecting a package in the KB, the
librarian must select title by title and edit
coverage for each title
● Researchers cannot find library-owned
content due to incorrect or incomplete
information, leading to lower usage
● The need to do more work frustrates
librarians, leading to lower levels of
customer satisfaction

27. Advice from librarians:
Make sure KBART files are
updated regularly
Calendar created by
Makyzz – Freepik.com

28. KBART Endorsement
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY

29. KBART endorsement process
1. Indicate your interest by contacting a KBART working group member
at: kbart@niso.org
2. Read the requirements, accessible via niso.org/standards-committees/kbart. The
recommended practice also includes a data sample file
3. Format your e-journal and e-book content availability data to meet the requirements
4. Ensure that you have a process in place for regular data exchange as outlined
in section 5.2 of the KBART report
5. Register your organization on the KBART registry website
(sites.google.com/site/kbartregistry/), providing a link to download the newly KBART
formatted dataset(s)
6. KBART will provide a logo for your site and issue a press release
7. Provide the KBART formatted data (or its download location) to your supply chain
contacts

30. KBART Registry
https://sites.google.com/site/kbartregistry/

31. What’s next for KBART?
KBART Phase III – beginning 2019
Expansion into additional content types, both textual and non-textual
Globalization improvements
◦ Language
◦ Translated or transliterated title information
◦ Contributor names
Improving support of KBART Automation
◦ KBART Automation Recommended Practice expected final release in Spring 2019
◦ Supporting additional (optional) file formats/containers
◦ Collection-level information
Investigation into improvements for hybrid OA and supporting article-level rights
information
Clarifications and edits to Phase II recommendations, the endorsement process, and
more

32. Get involved
Email for questions or comments: kbart@niso.org
Links to the latest information:
https://www.niso.org/standards-committees/kbart
KBART for Content Providers (Style Guide, template files, etc.):
https://www.niso.org/standards-committees/kbart/kbart-content-provi
ders
KBART Automation:
https://www.niso.org/standards-committees/kbart/kbart-automation
KBART Interest Listserv: https://groups.niso.org/lists/kbart_interest/