Baltimore, March 10, 2021: The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) today made its new draft Recommended Practice for Content Platform Migrations available for public comment. The result of nearly two years of collaboration between the librarians, publishers, and content platform providers on the Content Platform Migrations Working Group, this Recommended Practice provides a standard process and recommendations to improve communication between all parties involved before, during, and after migration.

Well-planned platform migrations, including good communications with customers, ensure that the content is delivered on the new platform with no broken links, no loss of functionality, no interruption in access, and no loss of customer information. Streamlining the process will result in a smoother overall transition for everyone’s benefit.

“Content platforms, whether developed by publishers themselves, or licensed from third parties, are widely used to provide libraries and their patrons with access to scholarly content,” said Working Group Co-Chair Athena Hoeppner of the University of Central Florida. “Ensuring that migrations between platforms is as smooth as possible benefits everyone, so we are pleased to share our recommendations with the wider community for their feedback and input.”

“We are grateful to all Working Group members for their efforts in developing this Recommended Practice,” added Kim Steinle of Duke University Press. “Unfortunately, a problem-free migration is often the exception rather than the norm but, by implementing our recommendations, platform providers, publishers, and libraries will be able to change that situation for the better.”

“Our thanks to Athena, Kim, and everyone in the Content Migrations Working Group for their hard work and dedication in drafting these recommendations,” said Nettie Lagace, NISO’s Associate Executive Director. “We look forward to receiving feedback from the community, which the Working Group will  evaluate and incorporate, as appropriate, into the final Recommended Practice.”

Everyone involved in, or with an interest in, improving content platform migrations is invited to share their feedback on the Content Platform Migrations Working Group Recommended Practice, which can be found at http://www.niso.org/standards-committees/content-platform-migrations. It is open for comment through April 23, 2021.

About NISO
Based in Baltimore, MD, NISO fosters the development and maintenance of standards that facilitate the creation, persistent management, and effective interchange of information so that it can be trusted for use in research and learning. To fulfill this mission, NISO engages libraries, publishers, information aggregators, and other organizations that support learning, research, and scholarship through the creation, organization, management, and curation of knowledge. NISO works with intersecting communities of interest and across the entire lifecycle of information standards. NISO is a not-for-profit association accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). For more information, visit the NISO website (https://niso.org) or contact us at nisohq@niso.org.