Standards & Metadata

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Covering your Bases: 2014 Standards Implementation and Business Planning

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This week’s guest blog post is from Christen Thomas, Executive Director of the Literary Press Group of Canada. At Tech Forum’s BookNet 101 event, she’ll be presenting on how to take new standards such as Thema and ONIX 3.0 into account while mapping out a business plan. She will also include copious sports metaphors. You’re up to bat, Christen!

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Five New Year's Resolutions

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On January 1st, certain New Year’s resolutions are always popular—eat better, exercise more, quit smoking (again), finally write that book—but the start of a new year is a great time for business-related resolutions, too. So if you’re looking to get more out of your book-related business, here are five resolutions that can help you start the year off right.

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Better Living Through Better Metadata

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I’m very pleased to announce that a new, fully updated version of the joint BookNet Canada / BISG Best Practices for Product Metadata guide, including guidance for digital products and ONIX 3.0, has been released:
 
Best Practices for Product Metadata: Guide for North American Data Senders and Receivers.
 
Now, what do these new standards mean for your business? What are the first steps you should take to implement them? Have no fear: we’ve got you covered.

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What Does It Mean to Implement ONIX 3.0?

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It’s a vexing question. I like to explain ONIX for Books by separating out the standard (what you track as metadata) from the technical side (XML, which can be thankfully ignored in this post). ONIX as a standard is a way for two companies to exchange information about books without ambiguity by using published definitions. Using the standard involves those companies agreeing between them on what level of detail they need from the ONIX data fields to support their systems and sales.

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Thema: A New International Classification Scheme for Books

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What is Thema?

Thema is a new international book classification scheme, based on the BIC, and IBIC (the internationalized version of BIC), Subject Classification. IBIC will become Thema.

“Intended for use by all book industry stakeholders, Thema is a flexible standard that allows each market to retain its unique cultural voice while still presenting a unified hierarchy that rationalizes book categorization. The goal of Thema is to reduce confusion about subject codes for both upstream and downstream trading partners, in order to facilitate the sale of more books.”

 —From the Thema web site (www.panthema.org)

BISAC Codes: Aboriginal Fiction

Book Industry Standards and Communications (BISAC) Subject Headings are the North American standard for classifying subject information for your books. Your books + BISAC subjects codes = glorious discoverability. This evolving standard is based on the work done by the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) Subject Codes Committee of which BNC is a member. And we represent you so there’s room for your involvement.

The purpose of my post today is to give you some insight on how a Subject Heading is created and how you can help us create one.

The 2011 BISAC Subject Codes

The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) has released the annual update of BISAC Subject Codes. The BISG committee works hard to make sure the subjects keep up with the changing publishing market, adding and removing codes and refining code definitions. While most codes remain the same year-to-year, publishers should review the changes and update their coding for all active titles (front and backlist) if it’s changed.

We look at the subject areas with the most changes, and what you need to know about the BISAC Subject Codes update.

 

 

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.

 

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