Book Industry Study Group

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By John Mutter (Shelf Awareness) -- The Book Industry Study Group's annual meeting and conference last Wednesday was full of good news about the organization, which in the past three years under executive director Jeff Abraham has gone from a sleepy, near-bankrupt entity to a busy, financially sound group that acts as a forum to debate and deal with many book world issues, do research as well as create and maintain standards for the book industry--all with the aim of improving efficiency and reducing costs. It is composed of and represents broad sections of the industry, from publishers, distributors and wholesalers and retailers to manufacturers, associations, consultants and technical companies. Interestingly BISG is set up to reach consensus. As Abraham said, a single "person, whether a corporation or sole proprietor, can object to and derail" initiatives--and force compromises.

By one measure alone--attendance at the annual meeting--the change in BISG is striking. In 2002, all of 17 people attended BISG's annual meeting. The following year the group grew to 46. Last year, 105 were on hand, and this year 226 people came. Active membership has grown to 163 as of the end of the fiscal year, and 175 through last week; about 1,000 people participate in the organization on some level. In addition, finances have turned around dramatically. In 2002, BISG had a deficit of $97,800. Each year since it has had a growing surplus, and this year it will have net income of $178,789.

Among the accomplishments in the past year:

BISG has formed a task force and undertaken an array of programs and publicity to help the industry make the transition to ISBN-13, including creating a "readiness directory," staging informational Webinars, printing an ISBN-13 for Dummies brochure and more.
It launched the Manufacturers Executives Interest Group, which aims to improve communications--electronic and otherwise--between publishers, printers and manufacturers.
BISG issued several major studies, including one earlier this year of small and midsized publishers called Under the Radar and the used book study (Shelf Awareness, September 29), which was previewed at the conference after the annual meeting.
It continues to work on a "warehouse benchmarking initiative," under which companies can compare the performance of their book warehouses with others'.
BISG has been surveying members as part of the process of developing a strategic plan for the next three to five years for the organization. (BISG has grown and developed so much that is at a "turning point," as Abraham put it. "Clearly during the last three years the organization has fundamentally changed.")
The group continues to monitor and address new technology that the book industry will need to deal with in the near future, including the Global Data Synchronization Network and RFID.
BISAC moved forward on a variety of issues, "the stuff," Abraham said, that "makes it all worth it." BISAC initiatives had saved "millions of dollars, he added. "It all goes directly to the bottom line."

Other news from the meeting:

Reporting on the EAN Transition Task Force, Random House's John Bohman had mostly positive news but said that despite assurances, the "mass merchandising channel has not been embracing change" in using Bookland EAN.

The board approved revised guidelines for shipping container labels in an effort to alleviate a multitude of labels. This entailed extensive negotiations with UPS on the structure and design of shipping labels.

Jim Lichtenberg of LightSpeed and self-described "RFID dork" said that privacy continues to be a major issue for the book industry in the development of RFID, which will consist of a "tag the size of a postage inserted in the book at the point of manufacture." Some libraries have introduced RFID, which has proven amazingly fast and efficient in checking books in and out.

FYI: GDSN

The latest supply chain/tech world acronym to learn is GDSN (Global Data Synchronization Network), which one BISG member described as "Books in Print on steroids" The data information exchange is being pioneered by some retailers and their suppliers and the book industry will need to plan for it, according to Abraham.

Al Garton, director of chain management, retail, at GS1 US, the former Uniform Code Council, said that GDSN helps "match supply and demand" and that "a lot of standards [needed for it] are in place already," including EAN and ISBN. The key is data synchronization, which he described as allowing business partners "to exchange information with each other continuously with common standards."

Jerry Lynch, group manager, general merchandise, of Wegmans Food Markets, discussed his company's experience implementing GDSN, which once done, is used with all partners who themselves use GDSN. It was a painful process, in large part because the company was a "trailblazer." He compared the system's effect with the ability today for anyone to check UPS's internal shipping information to locate in real time a package in transit. Lynch considers GDSN particularly important for the book industry because of "the sheer number of items, new items and outlets" and because of returns.

Perhaps it's the subject matter, but Book Industry Study Group participants often have some of the best jokes of industry meetings. They can also be poignant. Case in point: BISG president Joe Gonnella of Barnes & Noble started off the meeting paraphrasing a line about not asking vogons about their poetry, from Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe: "Don't let a supply chain guy read poetry to you." Then, reminding participants of the ultimate beneficiary of what they do, he read "The House Was Quiet And The World Was Calm," from an ancient volume of Wallace Stevens (so old the book had no bar code).

The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,

Wanted to lean, wanted much to be
The scholar to whom the book is true, to whom

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.

The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.

And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself

Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.

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