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The Draft Revision of KBART Phase III Is Now Available for Public Comment

The Draft Revision of KBART Phase III Is Now Available for Public Comment

September 2025

Baltimore, Maryland | September 25, 2025

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has announced that its draft revision of the Knowledge Bases and Related Tools (KBART) Phase III Recommended Practice (NISO RP-9-202X) is now available for public comment through November 10, 2025, at the project web page: https://niso.org/standards-committees/kbart. 

KBART is a NISO Recommended Practice that facilitates the transfer of holdings metadata from content providers to knowledge base suppliers and libraries. Its use helps to ensure the integrity and functionality of knowledge bases, which are widely used to support library link resolvers and electronic resource management systems. Since the publication of Phase II in 2014, the KBART Standing Committee has identified both needed clarifications and revisions to the Recommended Practice as well as substantial additions and new areas of work to cover. The draft of KBART Phase III includes support for additional content types (such as audio and video), additional support for hybrid open-access and global content, an overhaul of the KBART endorsement process, and provisions for a file manifest. Additionally, the Standing Committee has restarted its NISO KBART Interest List to foster community engagement and discussion around KBART. 

“The KBART Standing Committee includes diverse stakeholders, and this document reflects many months of generous, deliberate effort to serve everyone’s needs as well as possible. Where KBART is a small but pivotal piece in many complex, critical workflows, we look forward to reviewing the broader information community’s feedback and moving toward final publication,” said Robert Heaton, FOLIO Implementation Consultant at EBSCO and co-chair of the Standing Committee. 

“With adoption and reliance on KBART far surpassing the original expectations when Phase I was first released, it has become critical to offer support for both global users and multimedia content outside of the traditional monograph/serial paradigm. The KBART Standing Committee strove to create new, clear, and fully revised guidelines to give continued support to the library and knowledge base infrastructure today while creating a solid foundation for future needs,” added fellow co-chair Noah Levin, Manager, Metadata & Digital Asset Management at Springer Publishing.

NISO’s Standards Program Manager Keondra Bailey adds, “NISO would like to express its sincere appreciation to the KBART Standing Committee for their dedicated efforts in undertaking the significant revision of the KBART Recommended Practice for Phase III. We urge the community to actively share their insights and feedback, as their contributions are crucial to shaping the future of this Recommended Practice."

The draft Recommended Practice is available for comment through November 10, 2025.