Every now and then we hear news that is music to our ears and this time its news from Redalyc who have recently announced their project to transition their journals to the JATS XML format. The decision to make the transition was taken last year and on August 29th Redalyc will be launching their new online tool (Marcalyc) for XML JATS markup. From the press release:

‘Redalyc has undertaken a transition to the adoption of XML-JATS which provides a standardized format for describing and exchanging structured data. Redalyc’s strategy is based on empowering editors by providing tools and knowledge to make XML tagging a sustainable process. Redalyc is launching a new online tool (Marcalyc) for XML JATS markup—compatible with the JATS4R recommendation—as a free service for the Open Access journals indexed by Redalyc, a tool which is not designed to be used by technical experts or programmers.

Once having XML files, Redalyc will provide enriched file formats like ePUB and intelligent readers resulting in greater visibility and accessibility for Open Access research in Latin America, lowering costs for journals and leveraging the power of new technologies.’*

Redalyc are also launching an XML JATS reader which will improve the reader experience for the user, with powerful features like responsiveness, reference linking, search inside, image gallery, section navigation and automatic conversion to ePUB, PDF and HTML, all based in JATS4R specification. They have also provided a free online certification course (https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/9160206569091767555), the last of which runs today, in which they have trained editors in the adoption of JATS.

Arianna Becerril, Director of Technology and Innovation at Redalyc and DOAJ Advisory Board member, said: “We believe the adoption of JATS in Redalyc will help the Open Access science produced in Latin America achieve a greater international visibility, increasing the possibilities for that content to be discovered, read and cited. And also, this new feature will help journals to reach higher standards like the DOAJ criteria in the case of machine readability. [Today] we’re feeding article metadata for almost 100 journals into DOAJ with links to the full-text PDF. Now we’ll be providing links not only to the PDF file but also ePUB, the smart reader and HTML for the journals with XML markup.”

Well done Redalyc! This will surely play an important role in the continued growth of academic publishing from Latin America.

*much more information about this excellent project is available in Spanish at https://xmljatsredalyc.org/