May 2010 is the 10th anniversary of ONIX for Books Release 1.0. Join us in saying “Happy Birthday!”
The BiblioShare Certification Challenge
BNC BiblioShare is going gangbusters with over 230,000 EANs in the system, over 12,000 Canadian author markers and aggregators starting to experiment with the data. It seems like a good time to take stock.
ISTC: A Duffer’s Perspective
I had the good fortune to attend BISG’s meeting on Tuesday “Focus on ISTC” which was a supplement to Michael Holdsworth’s recent paper:
The International Standard Text Code (ISTC): A Work in Progress / A Supply Chain Perspective
The short message for Canadian publishers and data suppliers is that the US and UK supply chain is taking the ISTC seriously and that Canadian publishers should be familiarizing themselves with it too. You might need to be using it soon.
Get Ready for the ISTC
The ISTC (International Standard Textual Code) is starting to get some serious interest from different areas in the book supply-chain.
Data Exchange Tip #8: Up(date) Your ONIX, or: What Code Should the White Rabbit Use When Late for Tea, and Will His Invitation Change in Response?
If your company uses EDI you probably understand the need to maintain consistent and accurate ‘transactional’ records. But EDI is a limited number of fields and the company comptroller probably has it all under his or her thumb and allocates resources to its maintenance because it makes money (or more importantly loses money when done badly).
EPUB and the iPad
BIC Releases Recommendations for E-Book IDs
Book Industry Communication (the UK equivalent of BNC or the BISG) has released their recommendations on dealing with ISBN assignment for e-books.
The ACP's CPDS Digital Publishing Workshop
On December 9th and 10th I attended the ACP ’s CPDS (Canadian Publishers Digital Services) Digital Publishing Workshop, which focused on real solutions for the average Canadian publisher. I’m a BookNetter and not a publisher, but I managed to sneak my way into this workshop after I agreed to speak at it—more on that to follow.
This two-day workshop dived into the dirt of ePub production on day one and focused on practical solutions for digital workflow on day two.
Data Exchange Tip #7: Mac-Based XML Solutions—Using oXygen
XML on Mac is a rare bird, or if not rare, seriously undercooked. There isn’t the same amount of options as on a PC, and certainly not an ONIX-based editor such as with ONIXEdit. There are a couple of free XML editors available, however Smultron is no longer updating and Serna Free XML Editor is not available for commercial use, instead deferring to Serna Enterprise for businesses. However, Serna Free is a good tool for getting used to XML.
Data Exchange Tip #6: A DIY Guide to Schema Validation on a PC—XML Notepad 2007
For the purist, those who want their XML validation without the added benefits of what some programmer thinks would improve their ONIX file, there is a lovely generic XML software product called XML Notepad 2007. It’s free and written by a Microsoft programmer, Chris Lovett, so the freeware is from a safe source, it’s easy to set-up for a schema validation and robust with files as large as 20,000 records.
