[Asis-standards] ISTC vote

[Mark Needleman-UF]

NISO did not get consensus on the ISTC standard and is asking members who
voted CONFIRM to change their vote to REVISE

 

The comments from voters who voted to revise are:

 

Given lack of adoption and concerns expressed by others as well as the clear
need for a usable standard a Revise decision seems the most appropriate
route forward.

 

If this standard is to be useful and adopted by the North American trade
publishing industry it must be revised. There is little adoption at this
point due to the complexity of the standard.

 

Many trade publishers have had to create their own work ID because the ISTC
was not adoptable.

 

ISO 21047:2009 should be revised to determine if changes to the standard
will increase its adoption.here is enough concern expressed by others that
ALA supports a revision.

 

In its current state, the ISTC standard is not addressing the market's needs
sufficiently to generate the kind of enthusiasm necessary for broad
adoption. A thorough exploration of what needs it should address and what
problems it should resolve is needed. Stakeholders from various areas of the
publishing industry should be involved in the revision process to come up
with a revised standard that is truly helpful to the industry. Unfortunately
I don't have any clear answer as to what needs to be changed specifically,
but my overall sense is that the standards is too narrow and limiting in its
current form, requiring significant research and manual effort and focusing
on too narrow an area.

 

This standard has not gained market recognition and needs revision to be
usable.

               

Limited adoption implies that the ISTC has not fulfilled its intended
purpose. From other comments, it seems a revision that would address
stakeholder concerns is needed.

 

The community believes there is a need for a work identifier, yet ISTC is
not widely implemented. The reality that ISTC has not been broadly
implemented indicates, to me, that perhaps the standard needs investigation
to see if a revision would help broaden adoption.\

My recollection of this standard in 2009 is that resolution (decoding) of
the assigned ISTC was difficult if not impossible.

 

In addition to the comments by publishers, any revision should include a
streamlined and inexpensive means of access to the registry for look-ups of
text metadata.

               

The ISTC as it stands has not proven useful to the publishing community in
the United States. Yet, most distributors, wholesalers, and retailers, are
grouping products together using a parent work type function. This indicates
that there is still the need for an identifier of groups of works, but that
that ISTC in its current state is not serving this need.

 

We have no obligation to change our vote - but I need recommendations by
noon on 6/6

 

mark