Davidian "Transfer Code of Practice Standing Committee Update"

Editor's Notes

• #1: I’m Christine Davidian, from Rowan University in Glassboro NJ, and am a librarian member of NISO’s Transfer Standing Committee.
• #2: The transfer code of practice is a set of NISO-recommended best practices or guidelines for publishers of scholarly journals that are changing publishers. It is like a checklist in narrative form It specifies the responsibilities of both the old and new publishers and steps each of them needs to take within a specified timeframe.The code’s goal is to make the transition from one publisher to the other as smooth or seamless as possible for subscribers to access journals and authors to submit works to them. Ideally, there should be no downtime for the journal between publishers, and subscribers should be able to access all their entitlements from the new publisher. It is flexible since It is recommended by NISO and not mandatory for journal publishers to adopt It states what needs to happen and in what order but not how it should be accomplished.
• #3: Here are some transfer-related terms:. A transferring journal is one that is changing publishers. A transferring publisher is the old publisher of the journal. The receiving publisher is the new publisher of the journal. Aa transfer-Compliant Publisher is one that adheres to practices specified by the code. And an Endorsing Publisher , in addition to being compliant, can register with the Transfer Alerting Service (TAS) and publishes journal transfer details through the service, resulting in transparency to stakeholders. The code has been endorsed by more than 90 publishers and societies. Publishers who have endorsed the code are said to be transfer compliant. If you are a publisher and want to endorse the code, contact one of the group’s co-chairs. Sophia Anderton or Emilie Lavallee-Funston. Their contact information is on Transfer site.
• #4: For the endorsing receiving publisher, the benefit of transfer information being listed proactively on the Transfer Alerting Service, is that the news reaches stakeholders in advance, and shows accountability, which is good business practice. It builds confidence in the transfer process and all parties involved. Librarians very much appreciate the transfer alerting service notices which most often list upcoming journal transfers. They have come to rely on it as they need to know about transfers in advance so that they can plan ahead for their collection management and budget purposes. Once the transfer takes place, usually at the beginning of a calendar year, librarians can verify that they have retained access to the transferred journal as well as their perpetual access rights.
• #5: The Transfer Alerting Service is how interested parties receive news about transferring journals. It is a vendor-neutral neutral platform currently hosted by the ISSN International Centre in France.. Users can search or browse titles or sign up for email notifications, RSS feeds, or use the API.
• #6: Here’s a recent email notification subscribers of email notifications received.
• #7: The right side of this Transfer timeline shows that version version 4 has been the current version of the code since 2019. In 2022 the committee started reviewing and updating it. It released the draft of version 5 for comment in the spring of 2025.
• #8: While version 4 is a robust document, the committee reviewed the entire document over the last three years to ensure it is still relevant and updated language for the DRAFT of version 5.0 to reflect current practices.
• #9: The 19 mostly multi-part comments include pointing out some discrepancies and making recommendations.
• #10: During the post-public comment period, the transfer committee will review the comments and may incorporate suggestions that are considered to be relevant, and save other comments for a future revision. If changes are made to the draft, the document is edited again,once it is received back it is sent to the group via ballot for approval for publication. After the group approves for publication, it is sent to the Topic Committee (NISO Information Policy & Analysis (IPA) for final review and approval for publications.
• #11: List of references
• #12: If you have any questions, please email the co-Chairs of the Transfer Working Group, Sophia Anderton, sophia.anderton@bjui.info and Émilie Lavallée-Funston, emilie.lavallee-funston@stir.ac.uk.