EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) has increased the number of databases that are included in its policy for metadata sharing and technology collaboration partnerships with discover vendors. Now, EBSCO makes all metadata (and full text when contractually allowed) available for a new total of 179 EBSCO full-text databases, as well as all 74 EBSCO full-text historical digital archives and all 550,000+ EBSCO eBooks.
In April, EBSCO announced an open policy for data sharing to cover critical areas of mutual collaboration with other discovery vendors. The policy outlines EBSCO’s commitment to exchanging metadata and integrating technologies with partner vendors to enable an enhanced discovery experience for mutual customers. In addition to the sharing of metadata, the policy includes EBSCO providing assistance with linking technology for all full-text documents in all EBSCO full-text databases.
The policy reflects EBSCO’s desire to encourage collaboration to ensure the desired user experience for customers regardless of which discovery service they choose. The policy was created to encourage greater partnerships and transparent goals for collaboration among ILS vendors, discovery providers and content providers. To achieve this, the policy calls for discovery vendors who are also ILS providers to enable patron catalog functionality within EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS), as well as additional technology integration on both sides.
EBSCO Information Services Executive Vice President, Sam Brooks says the latest additions are a part of EBSCO’s ongoing efforts to provide open data for the benefit of customers: “When establishing our original policy, we instantly made more academic content available to discovery services than any other content provider. Now we are extending the scope of content available to these providers to include additional databases. We look forward to continue working with the library community at large to benefit customers.”
The full policy including partnership terms and policies and features is available at: www.ebscohost.com/metadata-sharing-policy.
