NISO and UKSG are pleased to announce the addition of five new organizations
as official endorsers of the joint recommended practice, KBART: Knowledge
Bases And Related Tools (NISO RP-9-2010). [Available for free download from
http://www.niso.org/publications/rp/.] This Phase I publication, published
in January 2010, contains practical recommendations for the timely exchange
of accurate metadata between content providers and knowledge base
developers.

The most recent organizations to endorse KBART are: Alexander Street Press;
Annual Reviews; EBSCO Information Services; Innovative Interfaces, Inc.; and
Royal Society Publishing. These companies join the American Institute of
Physics, Ex Libris, OCLC, and Serials Solutions on the list of formal
endorsers. All content providers, from major databases to small publishers,
are encouraged to publicly endorse the KBART Recommended Practice by
submitting a sample file to the KBART working group, at kbart@niso.org.
Endorsement is finalized once the file's format and content has been
reviewed and approved, and the provider has made it publicly available (in
line with the recommendations).

Sarah Pearson, E-Resources & Serials Coordinator at the University of
Birmingham and UKSG co-chair of the KBART Phase II Working Group, stated,
"The joint NISO/UKSG working group is very pleased that the uptake of the
recommendations is gathering momentum, as evidenced by the growth of formal
KBART endorsements. We have been actively working to promote the benefits of
implementing the recommendations, and are thrilled to see that our message
is getting through. We look forward to seeing more progress in the future."

KBART has also made a contacts registry
(http://sites.google.com/site/kbartregistry/) available for content
providers and knowledge base developers to register their organization's
information for downloading holdings metadata. The registry provides a list
of contacts, URLs, and instructions relating to the transfer of e-resource
metadata between content providers and link resolvers. Companies that have
formally endorsed KBART are marked with a KBART logo on the registry.

KBART's Phase II work is underway to develop a second recommended practice
that will build on the Phase I recommendations. Knowledge base providers and
their customers (primarily academic libraries) will benefit from provision
of higher quality data by content providers. Publishers will benefit from
accurate linking to their content and subsequently the possibility of
increased usage.

For more information on KBART and the current Phase II work, visit
www.uksg.org/kbart or www.niso.org/workrooms/kbart.

Cynthia Hodgson
NISO Technical Editor Consultant
National Information Standards Organization
Email: chodgson@niso.org
Phone: 301-654-2512