A Little Snow Couldn’t Stop The Ideas From Flowing!

Letter from the Executive Director, March 2025

Another February has passed and another NISO Plus conference is on the books. From the pre-meeting sessions through the inspirational keynote from Cindy Hohl to the final moments of a thought-provoking Miles Conrad Lecture by Timnit Gebru, the conference was packed with exciting ideas and fascinating conversations. This year, we moved to a larger, more comfortable location in the Harbor East neighborhood of Baltimore. And while the winter weather caused some consternation and travel concerns, the conversations kept things lively and focused on our goals.

The meeting hosted three pre-conference sessions. One was a return of the in-person JATS-Con after a hiatus and pivot to virtual events during the pandemic. With so much work to be done on this important standard and so many publishers using JATS for production, there was a lot to discuss. Presentations addressed a range of topics, including representing mathematics, multilingual formatting of text, using JATS and Wordpress applications, and the CP/LD standard and JATS. The proceedings of JATS-Con 2025 have already been published online.

The first of two half-day pre-conference discussions was focused on the state of artificial intelligence in the world of scholarship and research. Several of the largest vendors in our community discussed how they are using AI in their processes. The conversations focused on trust, privacy, accessibility, and how content is used (or restricted) in training. The role of vendors was the focus of further discussions led by Leo Lo, University of New Mexico, and Cynthia Hudson-Vitale, Johns Hopkins University, modeled after the scenario planning work done by ARL. Collaboration came up again and again, in keeping with the tenor of NISO Plus. The second pre-conference meeting was focused on standards related to open access (OA) ebook usage. After a series of framing conversations, the meeting broke into two workshop groups—one focused on usage data providers, the other on usage data consumers—to discuss various ideas related to improving usage tracking.

The primary focus of the NISO Plus conference isn’t to discuss projects or initiatives per se, but to use the gathering as an opportunity to identify community needs related to these topics. Ideally, this discussion will lead to ideas and potential solutions that can be moved forward in some forum—be it in NISO or elsewhere. This year’s meeting did not disappoint in this regard. Here are some the ideas that generated the biggest buzz in the hallways:

• Developing and expanding the work on AI research integrity checks and the AI Disclosure Framework to address some of the trust issues arising from the use of AI tools in research.
• Developing open standards for AI-driven metadata augmentation. The integration of AI in metadata creation offers opportunities for enhanced discoverability, but requires standardized practices to ensure consistency and interoperability,
• Interoperable metadata that accurately conveys accessibility features of platforms, not just products. While there are a lot of valuable standards related to how accessibility data or metadata should flow and how individual products should be represented, robust metadata describing the accessibility of platforms or tools is not as readily available.
• Establishing a shared standard for tracking OA book usage. There's a recognized need for a unified approach to monitor OA book usage across various platforms, focusing on unique identifiers and consistent data collection methods as well as consistent terminology around measurement.
• AI use in accessibility. AI technology could be used in many ways to facilitate more robust accessibility functionality, so long as it is done well. Guidance is needed on how to implement AI accessibility tools while ensuring they are used appropriately and with human review.
• Representation of Indigenous knowledge in published materials. How can we advance recognition of—and careful respect for—Indigenous knowledge in publications?

Of course, artificial intelligence was discussed beyond the pre-conference and sessions. In the hallways and over dinner, AI applications came up in several conversations, from questions like “Have you seen this new tool?” to discussions of rights and responsibilities. Also, several people spoke to me about presentations on AI I’ve given over the past two months. One example of an idea emerging from a recent presentation is summarized in a Scholarly Kitchen article on leveraging our collective experience using model licenses for selling and purchasing content in the library marketplace. The model license ecosystem that has been in place for decades might work well in the space of licensing content to AI developers.

The ideas noted above as well as others documented in the meeting notes could help advance more efficient exchange of content. Not all of them will find reception and gain traction in the community, but those that do will require effort as we work to build consensus on solutions and drive their adoption. Following the meeting, the NISO team discussed ways to improve the process by which projects move forward. Importantly, we are considering ways to better involve the community in selecting and advancing the projects discussed during the conference. This year, we will be doing something a bit different in an attempt to build momentum. First, we are working on a report synthesizing outputs from the meeting. Once that is circulated, we then plan to host virtual conversations about the ideas raised during the conference and workshop some of them into proposals that can be considered by the community. 

Be on the lookout for that report and an announcement of next steps. As I say during every NISO Plus event, the real work of the conference begins after the participants leave.

Sincerely, 

Todd Carpenter
Executive Director, NISO