ONIX

ONIX for Books is the international standard for representing and communicating book industry product information in electronic form.

Overview

Publishers need a standardized way to communicate the electronic data that they use to promote and identify books. This data communicates all of the metadata needed to describe the book by a dealer or web site. The standard ONline Information EXchange, ONIX, defines the method of exchange which is done with a defined formatted XML template and an image file for the product.

Standards committee

ONIX for Books was developed and is maintained by EDItEUR, jointly with Book Industry Communication (UK) and the Book Industry Study Group, BISG, (U.S.), and has user groups in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden and the Republic of Korea. The latest version is 3.0 released in April 2009.

Recommendations

There is lots of data that can be communicated but BISG has identified a best practice list consisting of 31 items:

1. ISBN-10/ISBN-13/EAN.UCC-13 - Unique identifier

2. Title - Complete Title include sub-titles as it appears on the title page

3. Contributor(s)

4. Publisher/Imprint/Brand Name

5. Price

6. Publisher’s Proprietary Discount Code

7. Publisher Status Code

8. Product Availability Code

9. Product Form (Format/Binding/Packaging)

10. Publication Date

11. On Sale Date (if applicable)

12. BISAC Subject - Genre

13. Language of Product Content (if applicable)

14. Series (if applicable)

15. Edition Number (if applicable)

16. Edition Type/Description (if applicable)

17. Volume Number (if applicable)

18. ONIX Audience Code

19. Age Range of Target Audience (if applicable)

20. Case Pack/Carton Quantity

21. Replaces/Replaced By (if applicable)

22. Territorial Rights

23. Bar Code Indicator

24. Weight and Dimensions

25. Return Code

26. Page Count, Running Time, and Extent (if applicable)

27. Distributor/Vendor of Record (if applicable)

28. Number of Pieces (if applicable)

29. Textual Description of Product

30. Illustration Details (if applicable)

31. Digital Image of Product

For more information

• http://www.bisg.org/what-we-do-21-15-onix-for-books.php
• http://www.editeur.org/93/Release-3.0-Downloads/ The standard documentation and guidelines.