Plan M: streamlining the bibliographic metadata marketplace

The cost of managing bibliographic metadata across the UK HE sector is significant and the marketplace is complex. This project will engage with stakeholders including publishers, metadata and content suppliers, standards and procurement bodies and library metadata practitioners. 

What are we doing?

We will facilitate dialogue and collaboration and develop partnerships, working towards streamlining licensing and workflows. The role of the National Bibliographic Knowledgebase will be leveraged as a vital piece of national infrastructure supporting this work.

After collaborative discussions with the sector and OCLC starting in 2019, we launched the Transitional National Metadata Agreement between Jisc and OCLC in February 2022. The transitional phase of this agreement runs until July 2022. After this, we hope to move past the initial phase into a longer-term, multi-year agreement between Jisc and OCLC.

Further work on the Plan M project between 2022-2026 will involve liaising with other relevant third-party stakeholders, such as publishers and bibliographic metadata providers, to advocate on behalf of our members and establish a clear path for Jisc’s position within the bibliographic data ecosystem.

We will also be collaborating with other projects to look at establishing the best possible ‘fit for purpose’ bibliographic metadata standards for Open Access Monographs to align with all of the work taking place around the new UKRI policy.

Finally, we also want to further develop our understanding about acquisitions and cataloguing workflows in our member libraries to ensure that developments to Library Hub Cataloguing and other Library Hub Services are evidence-based and meet the needs of our community. A core part of this work will also include focusing how Equality, Diversity and Inclusion work can inform metadata quality. 

Project aims and objectives

Aim

To implement a more efficient bibliographic metadata supply model for UK academic & specialist libraries using the Jisc NBK/Library Hub as core infrastructure. 

Objectives

• To establish a fair and sustainable ‘pay to share’ bibliographic data ecosystem for UK academic and specialist libraries who are Jisc members and/or NBK contributors
• To design a data supply chain that delivers ‘fit-for-purpose’ records as early as possible in the creation cycle
• To streamline workflows for libraries and suppliers to reduce duplication of effort across the community
• To ensure that all records are available to all Jisc members and/or NBK contributors at the point of need with permissive licensing for sharing and re-use
• To provide an infrastructure that allows institutions to easily acquire and then re-share enhanced records

Find out more

For more information about the project, contact Rosie Hare (rosie.hare@jisc.ac.uk) or Neil Grindley (neil.grindley@jisc.ac.uk). Follow our blog to stay updated.