In March 2020, BookNet Canada’s Bibliographic Committee reviewed and endorsed a countdown calendar to help guide Canadian data providers as they transition to ONIX 3.0. The impetus for this is Amazon’s mandate for ONIX 3.0 feeds for print books by the end of calendar year 2020.
The committee endorsed August 28, 2020 as the date by which Canadian data providers should be able to generate ONIX 3.0 records and feeds, as well as send those to data recipients who chose to accept it. This deadline was adopted in order to shift much of the work from the busy fall selling season, and to align with the deadlines adopted by our North American partner, the Book Industry Study Group (BISG). Moreover, a deadline earlier than the one mandated by Amazon will ensure plenty of lead time for data providers to confer, collaborate, adopt best practices, and test with a wider pool of data recipients, including BookNet Canada’s own bibliographic data aggregation service, BiblioShare.
Calendar
The countdown calendar is a living document and will be updated as needed until the industry is ready for adoption of the standard. Bookmark this page to stay up to date.
Other resources
In addition to the calendar, BookNet Canada has launched comprehensive resources to support data providers as they transition to ONIX 3.0:
As always, feel free to get in touch should you have any questions or need support. We’re here to help.
English and French Canadian organizations collaborate on Best Practices relating to the discoverability of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis publishing and books by Indigenous authors.
Sales and library circulation data of Health & Fitness titles during the the second quarter of 2025.
This month’s episode features a conversation about AI and one of its potential applications in the publishing industry: storytelling analysis.


Sales and library circulation data of Horror titles during the the second quarter of 2025.