Mellon Foundation Supports Developing CDL Standards

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has received a grant of “$125,000 from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support the development of a consensus framework for implementing controlled digital lending (CDL) of book content by libraries, which has been approved by NISO members as a new initiative.”

"We are very grateful for the support from The Mellon Foundation in support of this work to help uptake of CDL in all kinds of libraries, whether or not they are well-resourced," said Todd Carpenter, Executive Director of NISO. "With the support of contributors in our working group, this effort will consolidate the range of approaches currently being deployed, thereby supporting faster and cheaper deployment of CDL in institutions. It will also serve as a catalyst that identifies and spurs the advancement of beneficial changes to existing specifications, the development of new tools, or potential infrastructure that may be needed. This proposed consensus framework aims to serve both academic and public libraries, as well as special libraries and archives."

The Working Group’s scope will include refining existing models that describe the similarities and differences between CDL and traditional circulation and ILL; developing use cases for CDL that take into account all libraries who may adopt it; identifying gaps in the understanding of CDL applications; developing model processes for library staff; describing systems interoperability requirements; and identifying changes needed to existing library protocols and standards. Importantly, lessons learned from patron and staff experiences from the range of current implementations will be incorporated into the working group process to ensure that usability and accessibility is addressed in the output.

RF salutes this development. Standards for sharing are important and this development further solidifies the commitment of libraries of all types to this important (and legal) way of sharing content. It begins to look as if the still-to-be-litigated AAP/publisher suit against the Internet Archive will be very far from the last word on the application/adoption of CDL. Oh well, I guess ya can’t sue ‘em all.