Brian Green, David Martin The Book Business and International Information Standards EDItEUR Seminar, Moscow, September 2007 ONIX: where it has come from and where it is going

Founded 1992 in Amsterdam as a European book trade EDI group Sponsored initially by the European federations of publisher, bookseller and library associations Now 90 members from 17 countries, including Australia, Canada, Japan, Russia, S Africa, USA Interests extending beyond EDI and book supply, to embrace all forms of electronic communication in the book and serials sectors What is EDItEUR?

National groups, generally with interests in a particular part of EDItEUR’s work, such as ONIX Numbering agencies: ISBN, ISSN, GS1 (formerly EAN International) International DOI Foundation (IDF) ICEDIS: International Committee on EDI for Serials (managed by EDItEUR) IFLA, IPA Publishers, booksellers, distributors, systems vendors EDItEUR partners

EDIFACT trading message formats XML trading message formats ONIX product information standards ONIX for licensing terms Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) EDItEUR standards

The Association of American Publishers ONIX (ONline Information eXchange) project began in Autumn 1999, with the aim of providing a standard format for publishers supplying product details, particularly to Internet booksellers AAP published ONIX Version 1 Guidelines for Information Exchange in January 2000, based partly on earlier EDItEUR work With AAP agreement, EDItEUR published ONIX for Books Release 1.0 in May 2000, and since then has managed all ONIX development ONIX: the beginning

No longer just ONIX for Books: ONIX for Serials ONIX for registering identifiers ONIX for Licensing Terms ONIX today and tomorrow

A family of XML formats for communicating rich metadata about books, serials and other published media, using common data elements and “composites” ONIX comprises XML Schemas, DTDs, code lists and user documentation All developed and maintained by EDItEUR through a growing number of partnerships with other organisations What is ONIX?

Comprehensive bibliographic detail Text: descriptions, reviews, author biographies, extracts Images: jackets, thumbnails, author photos Audio and video, website links Territorial rights Prices and availability in different markets Promotional campaign information ONIX for Books

Release 2.1 revision 03 is the current version Development is controlled by an International Steering Committee representing......fifteen countries in which ONIX has been adopted by the book trade: Australia, Canada, Germany, Finland, France (with French-speaking Canada and Belgium), Italy, Korea, Netherlands (with Flanders), Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, UK, US Different countries are at different stages of implementation ONIX for Books

US: over 150 publishers sending ONIX feeds (October 2006) UK: 67 publishers (April 2007) Australia: 93 publishers (77% of the industry) (October 2006) Canada: 128 publishers (April 2007) Norway: about 70% of publishing output in ONIX in 2007 ONIX for Books

With seven years experience, the time has come for a full review of the standard The original requirement was for information about “traditional” books and other physical products – ONIX was designed for a physical supply chain, which still accounts for most publishing revenues However, publishers are increasingly producing digital content, and delivering it through different channels ONIX must handle digital products as an integral part of the format, not as an afterthought ONIX for Books

Sooner or later we need a major new Release 3.0 of ONIX for Books, not only embracing digital content but also making many other improvements Currently, the Steering Committee is reviewing whether to move straight to this new release, or whether to make less extensive changes in a Release 2.2, to allow more time to work out the longer-term requirements A decision is expected at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October ONIX for Books 3.0

An EDItEUR – NISO collaboration through a Joint Working Party (JWP) Three applications to date Serials Online Holdings (SOH): a format for communication between “publication access management systems” and libraries, to deliver details of the electronic holdings to which the library has access, and to populate resolution servers SOH Release 1.0 is published and in use: Release 1.1 is being prepared ONIX for Serials

Serials Products and Subscriptions (SPS): (a) Communication of journal product catalogue information through the supply chain from publisher to subscription agent to library (b) Communication of details of subscriptions held by an individual library or a consortium SPS Release 0.91 is available on the EDItEUR website: implementation is starting An extended Release 0.92 is being prepared ONIX for Serials

Serials Release Notification (SRN) A journal issue and article level format to be used for communicating details of printed or electronic content as it is released: two versions, one at issue level, the other at article level Release 0.91 of the issue-level message is published on the EDItEUR website A first release of the article-level message is being prepared ONIX for Serials

Standard identifiers (such as ISBN) need to be associated with at least a minimum set of metadata describing the thing that is identified This principle is recognised in all recent work on identifier standards in ISO and elsewhere ONIX subsets can readily be defined as carriers for identifier registration metadata ONIX for ID registration

DOI: a set of ONIX DOI registration formats has been developed, for serial and non-serial items, as works or as products, all available on the EDItEUR website ISBN-13: the new standard defines a minimum metadata requirement for ISBN agencies. An ONIX format and schema for ISBN-13 registration has been specified ISTC is expected to follow shortly ONIX for ID registration

Growth of digital collections in libraries Need to automate management of digital resources Need to relate licences to institutional policies Variation in licensing terms Complexity of licence documentation Uncertainty at the point of use How could publishers and vendors help? Licensing terms – the problem

Express licence terms in machine-readable form Communicate electronically from vendor to subscriber Enable licence terms to be loaded directly into a subscriber’s computer system But this needs a standard... Deliver licence terms digitally

Some work on the encoding of licence terms was done as part of the US Electronic Resources Management Initiative (ERMI) in 2004, but this fell short of enabling a licence to be fully expressed EDItEUR undertook a proof of concept project in 2005, supported by the Publishers Licensing Society and JISC Followed by the publication of a first draft of an ONIX format for Publications Licences ONIX for Licensing Terms (OLT)

OLT is a family of licence-related formats with a shared underlying framework A data model for describing licensing “events” All terms defined in a structured OLT Dictionary that will grow as new application needs are identified Individual formats specified – with appropriate levels of specialization – as separate XML schemas and documentation The OLT framework

ONIX for Publications Licenses (ONIX-PL) for communicating electronic expressions of publisher/library licences ONIX for Repertoire, and ONIX for Distributions Message formats for the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organizations (IFRRO) The Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP) project is using OLT semantics to express permissions for use of web content in a form that can be interpreted by search engine crawlers Others to come OLT applications

The common thread running through ONIX developments: ONIX Books 3.0 – enabling digital products to be described alongside traditional publications ONIX for Serials – driven by the need for better management of electronic journal collections ONIX for DOI registration – supporting the Digital Object Identifier ONIX for Licensing Terms – enabling compliance with licence permissions for digital content The digital future...

Brian Green: David Martin: Francis Cave: EDItEUR contacts