Todd Carpenter

Join us for an introduction to all things NISO! Curious about our work? Want to learn more about current Standards and other NISO projects? Join us for an introduction and to ask us questions.

Join us for an introduction to all things NISO! Curious about our work? Want to learn more about current standards and other NISO projects? Join us for an introduction and to ask us questions.

The Public Library Data Alliance (PLDA) is the implementing organization of the Measures that Matter project (https://measuresthatmatter.net/) and seeks to operationalize the goals of that project, primarily to "collaboratively develop and implement a National Action Plan that will allow libraries to more effectively turn data into useable information to demonstrate the value of library collections and services nation-wide." Come join some of the founding members of the PLDA in a discussion of the project and to help determine the areas of needed focus in this area.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, our annual members meeting will look a bit different this year. We usually hold an in-person meeting at the ALA Annual Conference, but since that has been cancelled, we are inviting you to attend the annual meeting virtually instead. The NISO Annual Members Meeting and Standards Update will take place via Zoom on Friday, June 26, from 11am - 12.30pm EDT/4pm - 5.30pm BST. You will hear from our Executive Director, Todd Carpenter, and other NISO staff about important organizational issues, including our strategic planning process for 2020-2022, the completion of the NISO/NFAIS merger, the inaugural NISO Plus conference, our organizational finances, and our standards program plans for the coming year. The meeting is also a chance for you to share your own feedback about NISO and our work, and to ask us any questions you have about our organization and how we operate. Following the Members Meeting portion of the session, Working Group members and NISO staff will provide updates on several NISO projects: Content Platform Migrations - Kim Steinle, Duke University Press E-Book Metadata Working Group - Ravit David, Scholars Portal, Alistair Morrison, Johns Hopkins KBART - Andrée Rathemacher, University of Rhode Island, Noah Levin, Independent Open Discovery Initiative - Rachel Kessler, ProQuest Seamless Access - Jason Griffey, NISO

Closing thoughts and goodbyes from NISO Plus 2021

Big Tech likes to boast about how good it is at manipulating us and oh, they are! But the cover manipulation - the psychological tricks they sell to advertisers and politicians - are thinly supported by the evidence and rely on self-serving, internal research that is largely indistinguishable from marketing puffery. On the other hand, there are plenty of ways that Big Tech provably alters our behavior: Facebook locks all your friends in its walled garden so you need a Facebook account to talk to your friends. Apple locks apps in its walled garden so you can't access apps that Apple doesn't like. Google pays billions to make it the default search on every platform, so any time you ask a question, they're the ones giving you an answer. All of this manipulation doesn't require psychological or technological tricks - all it needs is monopoly, and for the first time in 40 years, lawmakers are getting serious about fighting monopolies. Using anti-monopoly laws to break Big Tech's power may sound like a win: but if it turns out that Big Tech's claims to psychological manipulation mastery are true, then won't breaking Big Tech up just create dozens of little, reckless firms that have access to these devastating psychological weapons? In other words: if Big Tech is a comet headed at our planet threatening all life, then won't breaking it up turn it into a devastating meteor shower that we can't hope to survive?