Journal Supply Chain Efficiency Improvement Pilot project gets underway

Beaverton (USA), Lisse (The Netherlands), London (UK), Palo Alto (USA) January 20th 2006

The British Library, HighWire Press, Ringgold Inc., Swets Information Services B.V. and a group of HighWire-affiliated publishers announced today the launch of an initiative that will see these esteemed parties joining forces in 2006 to explore the creation, prototype implementation and value of a common institutional identifier that can be used throughout the entire industry, from purchaser to end user.

The start of every calendar year is a turbulent time for all parties involved with the journal supply chain, with missing issues, lost access to electronic journals and problems relating to the setting up of initial access. Many of these problems occur because of communication breakdowns somewhere along that chain. Although each company or organization involved has its own way of recognizing customers, users, clients and subscriptions, one of the aims of this project is that, in the creation and utilization of a standard institutional identifier, these problems will be eliminated, mitigated or at the very least diagnosed earlier.

As qualified representatives of all stages in the chain, the participants in this pilot project share the belief that integration and standardization are of paramount importance to the successful flow of information. The project will set up real-use case scenarios to discover whether or not the creation of such a standard identifier for institutions will be beneficial to all parties involved and test implementation strategies. The pilot will be limited to the UK customers of all the participants. The British Library will be working with the pilot to look at the implications of providing access to electronic archives. The role of HighWire Press is as a technical advisor per the request of the HighWire-hosted publishers involved in the project. Ringgold have been working with publishers for over 3 years to create a database of institutions and their metadata which will form a key basis of the pilot. Swets’ role will be to oversee how a standard identifier will affect the workflow between the publishers and consumers of information.

Regular reports and findings discovered throughout the project will be published online, along with comments from the participants involved in the project. All this information will be made publicly available at the following web address: www.JournalSupplyChain.org

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