bisg webcast -- onix for books v3.0 -- supporting new metadata for ebooks

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This BISG WEBCAST took placeWednesday, October 7, 2009 at 11:00 a.m. ET

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Brought to you in partnership with theInternational Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF)

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“Working to create a moreinformed, empowered and efficient

book industry supply chainfor both physical and digital products.”

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Michael Smith

Executive DirectorInternational Digital Publishing Forum

International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) is a non-profit trade and standards organization for the digital publishing industry representing over 120 companies and organizations. IDPF is dedicated to the development and promotion of electronic publishing.

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Brian Green, Executive Director, International ISBN Agency

Currently Executive Director of the International ISBN Agency, until the beginning of this year Brian Green was also Executive Director of EDItEUR. From 2003-2008, Brian was Chair of ISO TC46 SC9, the ISO Committee responsible for identifiers in the information community.

Brian managed BIC, the UK book trade standards body, from 1991 until 2006 and, prior to that, was Director of Technology and Publishing Management at the UK Publishers Association after working in the publishing industry for many years.

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David Martin, ONIX Support Team, EDItEUR

David Martin is an independent consultant on standards for business communication in the book trade, working principally for EDItEUR, where he leads the team responsible for ONIX for Books.

David has been involved with metadata standards for most of his career, at INSPEC, at the British Library, where he was Director of Automated Services for six years, and as a founder Director of Book Data Ltd (now part of Nielsen BookData).

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London-based global trade standards organization for books and serials supply chains Established 1991

ONIX family of communications standards ONIX for Books ONIX for Serials

(online subscription products including ebooks) ONIX for Publication Licenses

EDI RFID Secretariat for International ISBN Agency

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The first standard in the ONIX family “ONline Information eXchange”

Result of an AAP initiative in 1999 Response to growth in online book retailing Requirement for “rich product metadata” – never needed

in this form before Release 1.0 published May 2000 Developed since then by EDItEUR in close

collaboration with BISG and BIC Implemented widely around the world

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Version history v1.0 2000 (no longer supported) v2.0 2001 v2.1 2004 (retained backwards compatibility)

o Separation between structure and code lists

Governed by International Steering Committee Representatives from the 15 countries which have local

ONIX committees ONIX standard is designed to be very widely applicable Local committees (including BISAC) work on

implementation guidelines appropriate to local market

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Because users (through the International Steering Committee) told us you needed a new release Primarily to provide better support for digital products Some other requirements could not be met by a 2.X

revision

Decision taken to move to v3.0 Extensive structural work No longer backwards compatible Shares code lists with v2.1 (Issue 10)

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With special reference to digital products…

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Removal of ‘deprecated’ elements Digital products (ebooks and more) Multiple-item products, sets and items in series ‘Marketing collateral’ Market-specific data, for products sold

internationally Breakdown of product records into ‘blocks’, to

allow partial updates New schema language options (RELAX NG) But where no change was needed – no change…

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An admitted problem area in past ONIX releases: sets, series, multi-media products, multiple-copy packs

(classroom sets), trade packs (shrinkwraps), etc Problems of definition: is this a set? a series? a pack? or what?

Inconsistencies of description and encoding Repetition of title elements when a set or series

title is a necessary part of a product title Solution: a radical simplification of approach -

forget about ‘set’, ‘series’, ‘pack’, etc…

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Multiple-item product: any product made up of two or more items

Bibliographic collection: any collection of products with a collective designation

Not mutually exclusive Consistent approach to the description of any

multiple-item product, and any collection Collective (‘series’) title elements can be used as

part of product title without repetition See How to describe sets, series and multiple-

item products in ONIX 3, downloadable from the EDItEUR website

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Publishers and others are using, and will use in future, a much greater variety of supporting materials to promote sales, particularly in the web environment

Previous ONIX releases used: an <OtherText> composite to handle text content either as part of

the ONIX record itself or by links to text accessible elsewhere a <MediaFile> composite for links to non-text media, eg images

Structures are too limited to meet current and future requirements

Rigid distinction between text and non-text media is unhelpful

Both composites have been removed and replaced

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Three new data element groups: <TextContent> is strictly for text which is carried within the ONIX

record, and which is made available for use by the receiver: short and long descriptions, cover blurbs, review quotes etc.

<CitedContent> is for third-party content, in any medium, which is cited by way of reinforcing the promotion of a product: bestseller lists, TV or radio features, feature articles etc.

<SupportingResource> is for content, in any medium, which is offered by the publisher (or sender of the ONIX record) to be used by supply chain partners for promotional purposes, either by downloading or linking: images, audio and video clips, widgets, sample chapters. The composite is generalised so as to handle an unlimited variety of content and media types by adding codes.

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Most English-language publishing operates simultaneously in different national or regional markets.

Publication dates, availability status, price and much else are market-specific.

Some ONIX feeds relate only to a single marketplace, some (for example, to and from data aggregators at an international level) cover several markets.

Already partly recognised and supported in previous releases – but some elements – such as publication date -were assumed to be “global”.

ONIX 3.0 goes a stage further, by regrouping supply-related content into a new unified structure, specific to a designated marketplace.

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Elements for specifying ebook formats were added in 2001, in association with an AAP ebook project

These were apparently very little used: not much digital product metadata was being sent in ONIX 2.1

Probably because most ebook development was happening outside the “mainstream”?

But now digital products have joined the mainstream ONIX is the mainstream product information standard for

the book industry

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Product form DRM Usage constraints Supply channels

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Separate elements for digital product formats in ONIX 2.1 have been scrapped.

Product form description for digital products is now integrated with physical products in Product Form and Product Form Detail coding.

Top-level <ProductForm> coding is based on delivery method: ‘D’ codes for content delivered by physical carrier, ‘E’ codes for content accessed online or delivered by download (also new ‘L’ codes for licences sold separately).

Format specified in <ProductFormDetail> (eg PDF, EPUB). Content specified in Product Content Type elements (text,

audio, video etc). ONIX 3.0 works best if ISBN guidelines are followed.

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New element <EpubTechnicalProtection> Enables DRM to be specified separately from format Coded to specify (eg) ‘No DRM’, ‘Digital watermarking’,

‘Adobe DRM’ etc – more values will be added as required Example: ebook supplied as a download in EPUB format

with Adobe DRM:<ProductForm>ED</ProductForm> Digital download<ProductFormDetail>E101</ProductFormDetail> EPUB format<EpubTechnicalProtection>03</EpubTechnicalProtection> Adobe DRM<PrimaryContentType>10</PrimaryContentType> Text

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New elements added for optional encoding of a limited set of usage constraints

Usage type: preview, print extract, copy extract, etc Usage status: permitted without limit, permitted with limit,

prohibited Usage limit expressed quantitatively Example: preview permitted, up to 30 pages

<EpubUsageConstraint><EpubUsageType>01</EpubUsageType> Preview<EpubUsageStatus>02</EpubUsageStatus> Permitted with limit<EpubUsageLimit>

<Quantity>30</Quantity><EpubUsageUnit>04</EpubUsageUnit> Pages

</EpubUsageLimit></EpubUsageConstraint>

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Past ONIX releases assumed a physical supply chain: publisher to wholesaler to retailer

Variety of supply channels (and pricing models) for digital products, e.g.,

publisher to consumer / publisher to librarypackager to consumer / packager to librarypublisher to selected wholesalers to retailers publisher to selected retailers to consumer

Handled in ONIX 3.0 by new guidelines and code values rather than new elements:<Supplier> composite can now be coded to indicate a variety of ‘supplier roles’Where pricing is too complex to be represented in ONIX, an item can be listed without price, as ‘refer to supplier’

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Full ONIX 3.0 specification, data element summary, and XML technical notes published in April. Slightly revised versions issued in July, correcting textual errors reported by users. Only one change of substance: relaxation of one of the ‘rules’ associated with multiple-item products.

DTD, XSL and RNG schemas also published in April. A small but important amendment was made in July, to add a release number attribute to the ONIX Message element.

Code Lists Issue 10 was published in July: a further issue is likely by 2010.

Additional guidelines are being developed or are planned in a number of areas.

Any changes from here on will be backwards-compatible.

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Guidelines on “How to describe digital products in ONIX 3.0” coming soon to the EDItEUR website.

BISG Metadata Committee, as part of its work on maintaining ONIX “Best Practice” guidelines for North America, is finalising a complete ONIX 3.0 sample record for an ebook distributed by download through trade channels – to be available from the BISG website.

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For existing users: not backwards compatible Requires more extensive system work than upgrade to 2.x Never a “right time”

Particular challenge for data aggregators Support for multiple versions Input and output

Essential for all who need to communicate ebook metadata Important benefits for others, but less immediate pressure ONIX for Books 2.1 will continue to be supported, but

future development will build on 3.0

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ONIX for Books was conceived so that publishers could get better product information to consumers at the point of (online) sale.

That has always been the focus for the development of the format.

But are we missing other requirements for metadata flows in the ebook production and supply chain which might fit naturally into an ONIX envelope?

Perhaps you can tell us, direct, or through IDPF and BISG.

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Brian Green, Executive DirectorInternational ISBN Agency

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‣ Under “Rules of assignment”, the 2005 revision of the ISBN standard (ISO 2108) says: Different product forms (e.g. hardcover, paperback,

Braille, audio-book, video, online electronic publication) shall be assigned separate ISBNs

Each different format of an electronic publication (e.g. ‘.lit’, ‘.pdf’, ‘.html’, ‘.pdb’) that is published and made separately available shall be given a separate ISBN.

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‣ E-commerce systems require ISBNs‣ Bibliographic databases require ISBNs‣ Detailed sales/usage reporting requires ISBNS

‣ At the time of the ISBN revision, identification by file format seemed adequate. We thought that the e-book supply chain would be similar to print books. Not so!

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‣ For printed books, publishers assign ISBNs to each format and that ISBN remains constant throughout the supply chain

‣ For ebooks, many publishers only produce a single generic file format (e.g. “.epub”), and intermediaries add technical rights protection (DRM) and make different versions with different user functionality

‣ Other players in the supply chain need to be able to identify these different versions (e.g. for discovery, EDI, usage reporting)

‣ But not all publishers provide ISBNs for them

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Publisher / distributor

Library jobbers Wholesalers

Libraries Booksellers

Readers

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Publisher / distributor



Readers

ISBN “X”

ISBN “X” ISBN “X”

ISBN “X”

ISBN “X”

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Publisher



Readers

E-book aggregator / manager E-book aggregator /manager

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Publisher



Readers


Epub file

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Publisher



Readers


Epub file+DRM(proprietary)

Other formats

Epub file

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Publisher



Readers


Epub file

Epub file+DRM(diff. proprietary)

Other formats


Other formats

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Publisher



Readers


Epub file ISBN “A”?


Other formats


Other formats

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Publisher



Readers



Proprietary identifier


Other formats


Other formats

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Publisher



Readers




ISBN “A” for all formats


Other formats


Other formats

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Publisher



Readers


Epub file

Publisher


Libraries

Readers


Epub file



Own ISBN-like identifiers

ISBN “A”?


Other formats


Other formats

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Publisher



Readers


Epub file


Own ISBN-like identifiers

Publisher

Library jobbers

Libraries

Readers

E-book aggregator / manager

Epub file


Other formats


Other formats


ISBN “A”+ metadata

ISBN “A”?

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Publisher



Readers



ISBN “B”, “C”ISBN “D”, “E“


Other formats


Other formats

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‣ Some of their arguments: “We can’t manage the metadata bloat involved” “Our sales channels (e.g. Amazon) do not require

standard identifiers for ebooks as customers will find them through their preferred vendor”

“ISBNs are too expensive for us to assign to each format”

“We only “publish” one generic format (e.g. .epub) and assign an ISBN to that”

“We are not responsible for formats provided by third part intermediaries”

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‣ Since some publishers do not provide separate ISBNs for each version and some customers, especially libraries, need unique identification of products from different platforms with different functionality…

‣ If a publisher does not identify each format with a separate ISBN, re-sellers may do so on their behalf Not ideal but a necessary compromise until publishers

assign their own ISBNs Requires central bibliographic agency to collect and

list ISBNs and related metadata

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What do you believe is the biggest barrier to assigningISBNs to digital products?

Results gathered during a liveBISG Webcast participant poll held inSeptember 2009

0.00%

5.00%

10.00%

15.00%

20.00%

25.00%

30.00%

35.00%

There are no barriers

11.3%(16 votes)

Price of ISBNs8.5%

(12 votes)

Perceived value (or

lack thereof) for

my business

6.3%(9 votes)

Information / metadata

"bloat"33.1%

(47 votes)

Current workflows

make it difficult to

assign them19.0%

(27 votes)

Current digital

business model(s)

don't necessarily

require them16.2%

(23 votes)

Other5.6%

(8 votes)

Series1 11.30% 8.50% 6.30% 33.10% 19.00% 16.20% 5.60%www.bisg.org

‣ Standard identifiers are essential when there is a need to communicate across a supply chain, e.g. for purposes of e-commerce, aggregating information, reporting sales or usage.

‣ This was precisely the reason for introducing the ISBN standard (ISO 2108) in 1970 and the reason that it has been so successful in enabling trade developments

‣ Do we want to risk losing all that with digital products?

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‣ At what level of granularity are standard identifiers required? Generic file (e.g. epub)? Format (e.g. pdf)? Platform (e.g. ebrary)?

‣ By whom?‣ For what functions?‣ Who should assign them?‣ What are the barriers?

Please let us know if you have a view,now or to [email protected]

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We’ll now take questions...

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David Martin: [email protected]: www.editeur.org

Brian Green: [email protected]: www.isbn.org

Michael Smith: [email protected]: www.idpf.org

Angela Bole: [email protected]: www.bisg.org

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bisg webcast -- onix for books v3.0 -- supporting new metadata for ebooks

Education

book supply

book supply

supply chain

separate isbn

isbn standard

digital products

item product

formatsepub