Standards for electronic trading and product metadata David Martin ITALE Seminar, Milan 1 June 2004 EDItEUR

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

USA: BISAC (part of Book Industry Study Group), NISO (National Information Standards Organization) UK: BIC (Book Industry Communication) Other national groups, generally with interests in a particular part of EDItEURs work, such as ONIX: most countries do not have groups like BIC and BISAC EDItEUR partners

Numbering agencies: EAN International, ISBN, ISSN International DOI Foundation (IDF) Various ISO groups ICEDIS: International Committee on EDI for Serials (managed by EDItEUR) IFLA EDItEUR partners - international

EDIFACT trading message formats XML trading message formats ONIX product information standards EDItEUR standards

EDILIBE EU project on EDI for international library supply Participants from Germany, Italy, Netherlands, France, Spain, UK EDItEUR worked with EDILIBE and EAN International to define implementation guidelines for EANCOM EDIFACT messages Led to publication of a first edition of EDItEUR EDI guidelines in 1995 EDIFACT: how it started

1997: new release of EANCOM EDIFACT formats, with significant new features, and a promise of long-term stability EDItEUR revised, extended and re-issued its implementation guidelines Since then, all EDItEUR EDIFACT formats are based on EANCOM 1997 edition EDIFACT: the next stage

Quotes: notifications of new titles Orders Order response: for initial response and status reports Order change: changes or cancellations Order status enquiry: chasers or claims Invoice: also used as despatch notification and credit note EDIFACT: library book supply

In the UK, a wide variety of applications for Quotes, apart from new title notification With increased use of web ordering or other direct links to suppliers: how to ensure that an order is captured on the library system? One answer: use Quotes so that the supplier sends a proposed order to the library system, which then records and confirms it Used for showroom visits, web orders, supplier selection etc EDIFACT: library book supply

EDIFACT Despatch Advice for (a) advance notice of changes to publication schedules, and (b) notification of actual despatches Order Status Enquiry for serials claims Order Response for claim responses Invoice, for annual renewals EDIFACT: serials applications

Adoption of EDItEUR EDIFACT formats has been patchy Little use in the English-speaking book trade because of existing national formats (eg X12) Significant use in other-language markets Substantial and growing use in academic library supply – because international No new developments, but EDItEUR continues to respond to user requests for enhancement EDIFACT: general

...such as EDIFACT, are characterised by: The perceived need to keep messages short (transmission and processing costs): tight syntax, highly-coded content The philosophy that an order is an order is an order: one format must fit all So every variant from every industry is loaded into a single standard So each sector has to define implementation guidelines for the subset that it will use Result: complexity, difficult to read Traditional EDI formats...

EDItEUR is working with BISAC and BIC to develop… EDItX, a range of XML transaction document formats Using the Internet, and todays technology, message size (within reason) is not a problem Following XML design practice, formats have meaningful labels and meaningful codes A message can be readable as well as machine-interpretable XML formats: the next generation

Formats precisely specified for each different application: trade order, library order, consumer direct fulfilment (CDF) order, etc Using common components wherever possible, and a consistent approach to structure and nomenclature Industry-specific, but designed from the outset to be international A different approach

Published on the EDItEUR website: Book trade set: order, order response, order status report, status enquiry, cancellation, ship notice, stock enquiry, stock report Library book supply set: book order CDF book supply set: CDF order Digital sales report (for ebook distributors) EDItX documents to date

Book trade set: invoice Library book supply set: order response, etc – to create a complete set including the functionality currently available in EDIFACT CDF book supply set: other CDF transactions Serials: still to come EDItEURs aim: to ensure that standards are ready in time to prevent a proliferation of inconsistent XML formats EDItX work-in-progress

No evidence yet of any substantial movement to adopt XML formats in the book sector Early adopters on the trade side are likely to be those involved in Internet commerce In US trade and library supply, the widely- used BISAC fixed-length format will NOT be adapted for the 13-digit ISBN (January 2007) – may stimulate move to XML Library sector adoption may come with new generation of XML-based systems? EDItX adoption

A family of XML-based standards for product information Began as a book information standard, with the Association of American Publishers in 1999, primarily to improve the quality of publishers information supplied to Internet booksellers EDItEUR assumed responsibility for development, maintenance and publication in 2000 ONIX

ONIX for Books: Release 2.1 issued 2003, with minor revisions this year ONIX for Serials: three applications in various stages of development and piloting ONIX for Video and DVD Other ONIX applications: mEDRA DOI registration metadata, ISBN registration metadata etc ONIX in 2004

Adopted in the US, UK, Germany, France, Canada, Australia, Korea, and used in several other countries Publishers accounting for ~ 80% of US book production and over 40% of UK are delivering product information in ONIX to bibliographic agencies, wholesalers, large booksellers etc In Germany, the Deutsche Bibliothek is taking CIP input in ONIX format. Library of Congress is using ONIX data to enhance catalogues. ONIX for Books

An EDItEUR – NISO collaboration 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 reservation servers SOH has nearly completed piloting: the format will be published shortly ONIX for Serials - 1

Serials Products and Subscriptions (SPS) (a) Communication of journal product catalogue information through the supply chain publisher – subscription agent – library (b) Communication of details of subscriptions held by an individual library or a consortium SPS pilots are just starting; however, the pilot version of the format is also about to be published ONIX for Serials - 2

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 Substantially developed, but not yet ready for piloting ONIX for Serials - 3

Brian Green: David Martin: EDItEUR contacts