Springer Nature Open Discovery Initiative

Content providers are encouraged to take specific measures to assert their conformance with NISO RP-19-2014, the recommended practices of NISO’s Open Discovery Initiative. These measures are voluntarily made by each organization, in an effort to increase transparency and communications around pre-indexed or “web-scale” library discovery services. The ODI Conformance Checklist below was created to enable standardized methods for content providers to assert their ODI conformance to libraries, discovery services, and other industry stakeholders. 

ODI Conformance Checklist

 Springer Nature's ComplianceRecommendationReferenceComment
  • YES
Content Provider makes available to Discovery Service Providers core metadata and underlying full-text/original content for complete offerings.
3.2.1.1 (1)
(p. 15)

  • YES
Content Provider makes available to Discovery Service Providers, the core set of metadata elements (see 3.2.1.2) for each item submitted for indexing.
3.2.1.1 (2)
(p. 15)


  • YES
Content Provider provides the content item and additional descriptive content for as much of their content as possible.
3.2.1.1 (3)
(p. 15)

  • YES
Content Provider provides libraries, on request, with a statement of participation in the discovery services, including disclosure of coverage depth and content depth
3.2.2
(p. 22)

  • YES
Content Provider's agreements with Discovery Service Providers do not include non-disclosure agreements.
3.2.3
(p. 22)

  • YES
The transfer of Content Provider's data to Discovery Service Providers makes use of existing standards where applicable and uses one of the metadata encoding schemes listed in 3.3.3.
3.2.4
(p. 22)
MARC, KBART, ONIX supported.


About the Open Discovery Initiative

Nurtured by the National Information Standards Organization (NISO), the Open Discovery Initiative (ODI) aims at defining standards and/or best practices for the new generation of library discovery services that are based on indexed search. These discovery services are primarily based upon indexes derived from journals, ebooks and other electronic information of a scholarly nature. The content comes from a range of information providers and products—commercial, open access, institutional, etc.

Given the growing interest and activity in the interactions between information providers and discovery services, a more standard set of practices is required for the ways that content is represented in discovery services and for the interactions between the creators of these services and the information providers whose resources they represent.

The Recommended Practice was created by members of the ODI Working Group, which completed its work in June 2014 with the publication of NISO RP-19-2014. The ODI Standing Committee is now responsible for support and promotion of this work going forward.

The ODI Standing Committee is charged with the following tasks:

  • Promotion and education of ODI Recommended Practice for all stakeholders
  • Support for content providers and discovery service providers during adoption and completion of conformance checklists
  • Provide a forum for ongoing discussion related to all aspects of discovery platforms for all stakeholders
  • Consider next steps for items deemed out of scope from the original ODI Work Group Recommended Practice
  • Identify emerging needs in the open discovery space and determine appropriate courses of action
  • Make recommendations to the D2D (Discovery to Delivery) topic committee on further work items required to fulfill the goals of the Open Discovery Initiative

To learn more about ODI conformance, visit the Open Discovery Initiative workroom and download NISO RP-19-2014

Stay up to date

_
Follow us on Twitter

Here to foster information exchange with the library community

_
Follow us on Facebook

Springer Nature's LibraryZone is a community developed to foster sharing of information with the library community. Enjoy!

_
Connect with us on LinkedIn

Connect with us on LinkedIn and stay up to date with news and development.

_
Sign up for our alerts

News, information on our forthcoming books, author content and discounts.