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

ONIX is currently maintained by EDItEUR jointly with Book Industry Communication (UK) and the Book Industry Study Group (US), and with user groups in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden and the Republic of Korea.

In April 2009, EDItEUR announced the release of a major new version of the ONIX for Books standard: ONIX 3.0. This release of ONIX was the first since 2001 that is not backwards-compatible with its predecessors and, more importantly, provides a means for improved handling of digital products.

Read more about Release 3.0.

A minor update issued in January 2012, 3.0 revision 1, added functionality particularly for use in East Asia. The number of implementations of Release 3.0 is steadily growing, and new implementors should focus on this version of the standard.

For the foreseeable future, any new revisions will be based on, and be backwards-compatible with, Release 3.0, and we strongly encourage all users to implement it as early as possible. However, ONIX 2.1 is still fully supported by EDItEUR, and will continue to be supported until the end of 2014.

Download Release 3.0 schema and documentation.

To make sure that you keep in touch with further releases of information about ONIX for Books Release 3.0, SIGN UP to the ONIX for Books implementation listserv.

Latest Release: Release 3.0

• ONIX Code Lists, Issue 18: released August 2012
  The codelist files are supplied in CSV and XML formats for loading into local systems, and the complete set of code lists in HTML format include the complete set of lists for all current releases: refer to the 2.1 or 3.0 specification documents to ascertain which lists can be used with which release.
• Revision 1 of ONIX 3.0 (known as 3.0.1) was released in January 2012; the revision is a minor upgrade to the ONIX 3.0 format. Most of the changes increase the flexibility of the format for use with East Asian languages (particularly Japanese and Chinese), and in multi-language supply chains, but other changes will potentially be useful for all ONIX users.
  
  A summary of the changes in version 3.0.1 can be downloaded here.
• ONIX for Books, Release 3.0: released April 2009
• ONIX For Books, Release 2.1 revision 02 & 03: released February 2004

Releases 1.1, 1.2, 1.2.1, 2.0 and 2.1:

At its Spring 2009 meeting in London, the ONIX for Books International Steering Committee confirmed the intention to withdraw all ONIX releases prior to Release 2.0. The Committee waited until Release 3.0 was available in order to give effect to this decision.

As of July 2009, Releases 1.1, 1.2 and 1.2.1 have been removed from the EDItEUR website, and no further support will be offered.

Documentation, DTDs and schemas for Releases 2.0 and 2.1 remain available on the website and will of course continue to be supported.

Other ONIX information:

ONIX/MARC mappings

General information:

ONIX standards are maintained by EDItEUR under the direction of an international steering group. U.S. implementation and input to the international steering group are coordinated through BISG's Metadata Committee. UK implementation and input to the international steering group are coordinated through BIC's Product Metadata Committee.

If you have comments, questions or suggestions for improvements to ONIX for Books, please send them to one of the following contacts:

For the U.S., Karen Forster, BISG, email karen@bisg.org.

For the UK and all other countries, Mark Bide, EDItEUR, email mark@editeur.org.