A lot of software vendors and some firms go to great lengths to prepare ONIX files tailored to markets, creating separate files by certification standards for BISG, BookNet, and BIC. And some ONIX senders tailor their output based on what a retailer requests.
At BookNet Canada, we think that so long as the ONIX file is a properly prepared XML document it shouldn’t matter. Here’s why.
Yesterday I took the second of four metadata BISG webinars. It featured our Bibliographic Manager (or, as I like to call him, our Data Czar), Tom Richardson, along side Richard Stark, Director of Product Data at Barnes & Noble.
This webinar went over the 31 key data elements in ONIX, what they mean and why you should fill them out.
If you haven’t already visited, Canadian Bookshelf, I would highly recommend you take a little time to do so. The site itself looks great and there is a plethora of great (Canadian) content already there with more to come. I won’t go into all the features and functions of the site here as you can just go and try it out or read about it on their blog, but I will point out why we like this project in one word: collaboration.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret: BookNet Canada can produce regional bestseller lists in BNC SalesData. Yep. We could tell you what the top 10 nonfiction books are in British Columbia and they may not match up to Ontario’s top 10.
We currently only produce bestseller lists for the Canadian market as a whole. But with this new capability, things get a little more interesting. What will we find?
Tom and I called in to the BISG meeting on Thursday (January 13, 2011) where the findings of the Identification of eBooks Research Project [pdf - slides] were revealed and discussed.
The results of this research are pretty distressing for someone who works with standards every day, but also (sadly) not at all surprising. Here are the key findings from the report…
BookNet Canada is a non-profit organization that develops technology, standards, and education to serve the Canadian book industry. Founded in 2002 to address systemic challenges in the industry, BookNet Canada supports publishing companies, booksellers, wholesalers, distributors, sales agents, industry associations, literary agents, media, and libraries across the country.
