Published: April 13, 2009

EDItEUR has just released ONIX 3.0, a major new version of the ONIX for Books standard and the first since 2001 that is not backwards-compatible with its predecessors.

BISG's Metadata Committee, led by Richard Stark of Barnes & Noble, made a significant contribution to this extensive revision of the ONIX standard that had two key drivers:

• the need to improve the handling of digital products, and
  
• the recognition that maintaining backwards-compatibility has led to the increasing number of 'deprecated' elements that have had to be maintained -- and supported by ONIX receivers -- even though they are no longer recommended for use.

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.

Eight Key Areas of Change:

• Removal of redundant elements
  
• Description of digital products
  
• Handling of multiple-item products and series
  
• Publishers' marketing collateral
  
• Sales and distribution in international markets
  
• Products related to a single work
  
• Blocked records for more efficient updating
  
• New schema options
  

Read more about what's new in Release 3.0.