"Covering Your Bases: 2014 Standards Implementation and Business Planning" - Christen Thomas (Literary Press Group) at BookNet Canada's Tech Forum (BookNet 101) - March 5, 2014.
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Covering Your Bases: 2014 Standards Implementation and Business Planning - Tech Forum 2014 - Christen Thomas
3. SPRING TRAINING
With the spring season starting, it’s time to think about
upgrading your metadata to support new standards.
4. THE PLAYERS
Thema: Fresh new standard! Lots of potential.
ONIX 3.0: Created in 2009, needs to be put in your line up now!
5. PROFILE
Thema: International classification scheme, reduces confusion
about subject codes, more specialized and defined
regionality. Makes books easier to find for book buyers and
readers.
ONIX 3.0: Full support of international market. Define DRM,
provide better accuracy for sales and distribution, indicate
usage permissions or constraints.
Further reading: BookNet Blog (Noah Genner on Thema, Tom
Richardson on ONIX 3.0); Graham Bell’s Intro to ONIX for
Books 3.0 on EDItEUR.org
6. THEMA: AN EXAMPLE
You’re publishing a book on the Toronto Blue Jays.
With BISAC, you can code it as:
SPO003000 SPORTS & RECREATION / Baseball / General
With Thema, you can code it as:
SFC Baseball
1KBC-CA-OSM Southwestern Ontario: Greater Toronto Area
SCBT Sports teams & clubs
7. ONIX 3.0: A TRIPLE PLAY
ONIX 3.0 makes a clean sweep of “deprecated” elements as well
as others that have been made redundant.
Enables digital products to be handled more comprehensively
and more consistently than before.
At the same time, the opportunity has been taken to introduce
important improvements in other areas, although there are
many data element groups where little or no change has
been considered necessary.
8. IN PRACTICE
You can’t start a new season of standards without preparation!
How do you ensure that your team is geared up, and your
equipment is up to snuff?
9. SCOUTING REPORT
You need to know what the capabilities of your current
ONIX solution are for these important upgrades.
Or, maybe you want to make a trade.
10. SOFTWARE OPTIONS, UPGRADE PLANS
eBOUND – CoreSource: Ingests ONIX 3.0 now, Thema this year.
ONIXEDIT: Supports ONIX 3.0, but, parallel database for 2.1.
Thema supported now.
BookNet – WebForm: Because of the either/or nature of 3.0 in
ONIXEDIT, waiting until enough users are looking to upgrade
their catalogues once and for all. Thema subject categories
supported now, qualifiers in the future.
Klopotek: Being mapped for ONIX 3.0 and Thema this year.
LitDistCo: Creating ONIX 3.0 now. Planning on sending Thema
parallel to BISAC by end of March 2015.
11. STANDARDS: A TEAM EFFORT
Not just a data entry task.
Assignment of Thema subject codes: Marketing, editorial
BISG provides BISAC to Thema mapping
BookNet is making an automated tool
Still need contemplation before coding, not always an exact match.
Assignment of ONIX 3.0 fields: Production, digital
12. PINCH HITTERS AND FREE AGENTS
LitDistCo: Metadata creation services. General Manager Julia Horel
julia@litdistco.ca
eBOUND Canada: Publisher services model includes ebook
metadata creation. Technology Manager Shannon Culver
shannon_culver@eboundcanada.org
Tricia McCraney ONIX expert, tech project management
tmccraney@gmail.com
Bill Kennedy Metadata specialist, poet, creator of ONIXLive, data-
driven storefront for publishers and distributors
bill@creativemachines.ca
13. SAMPLE BUDGET: THEMA & ONIX 3.0
ONIX record: 15-30 min to upgrade (consulting, coding,
checking, corrections)
Freelance rate (or, in-house salary plus opportunity cost, if
pulling existing staff away from other work): $50/hour
Record value: $25
This relates to per-record charge on the market for metadata
creation. If you can staff this with a dedicated person such as
a paid intern, could be more efficient!
14. GAME DAY
In addition to cost, consider if your current business practices
make sense to spend on these developments now, or whether
you’re better off waiting. You don’t want to overachieve, but
you also don’t want to be outplayed either.
When do you move from practice or testing your new data to
game day with aggregators?
What comes first, the best-practice data feed or the retailer’s
requirement for up-to-date information?
15. THE PLAYERS
ONIX 3.0 now, Thema this year
ONIX 3.0 by 2015, Thema unknown
ONIX 3.0 forthcoming, no plan for Thema yet
No current support
ONIX 3.0 and Thema now
ONIX 3.0 now, Thema soon
16. PEP TALK
Get in touch with your data aggregators! Ask when they’ll
upgrade, tell them your plans to.
If people start offering new standards more consistently and
there’s extra value in the data, retailers will respond more
quickly.
For publishers with databases that can be mapped, and export
either 2.1 or 3.0, why wait?
Smaller leagues running parallel databases should start
planning and assessing resources now.
17. END GAME
EDItEUR has announced a sunset date of end 2014 beyond
which ONIX 2.1 will no longer be supported. This means, no
updated code lists, or updated Schema.
New players entering market will be using ONIX 3.0.
Most noticeable effect will be felt in digital.
No sunset date has been provided for BISAC yet. Thema has
the potential to replace it, and is better in its international
application, and breadth of subject categories and qualifiers.
18. REMEMBER
There’s no crying
in baseball,
or in standards
implementation…
though some tears may
be shed.
Be good to your
team!