About ONIX ONIX for Books is a standard data format that is used to transmit information about books and related digital products between publishers, distributors, wholesalers and retailers in the book trade. The ONIX message is written in XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and is generally sent over the internet using FTP (file transfer protocol) or by email attachment. ONIX has been created to meet the need of the book industry to transmit rich bibliographic information about books and related digital products between participants in the supply chain in a standard way; and thereby to enable recipients and aggregators of that information to process and redistribute substantial volumes of information in a functionally identical manner. Allied to this, it provides a framework of structures, conventions and code lists that may be used within publishers’ database systems to hold information about their products. ONIX therefore has a dual function: of facilitating the transmission of complex information about books to data aggregators, customers and other trading partners; and by extension of forming a structure and language in which such information can be held in management systems and databases by publishers. ONIX is an open standard, created and maintained by EDItEUR, the international book industry standards organisation, and is overseen by a steering committee representing the countries where it has been adopted. These currently include the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Korea, Russia and most of the West European and Scandinavian countries. Each of these countries provides input to continuing development through representative organisations: in the UK it is Book Industry Communication (BIC). There is no cost attached to using ONIX. The Benefits of ONIX ONIX came into being because retailers could not depend on the accuracy and timeliness of title information available from publishers. They needed reliable information, frequently updated, on which to base their store systems or online catalogues. ONIX provides the ability to retailers and data aggregators to process substantial volumes of information automatically without the delays that would be caused by the need for a variety of different automated programs or for human intervention. From the publisher’s point of view, the speed and accuracy with which information about available titles is moved down the supply chain is crucial to ensuring that sales are not lost. The discipline that ONIX provides in terms of the structure and content of a product record has also been of great benefit to publishers. Where in the past information about your books may have been held in numerous separate systems and with no guarantee of consistency, ONIX has encouraged the establishment of a single definitive repository for information about your titles; and that includes not just a bibliographic summary but also detailed descriptive content, reviews, marketing plans and links to cover images and other marketing collateral. Above all, though, the benefit of ONIX to publishers is that you are able to distribute a single identical ‘product catalogue’ file at the touch of a button: to data aggregators, customers, affiliate companies, and so on. Many publishers have also extended the potential of ONIX by using their records to create advance information sheets, catalogues and other promotional material based on the same core data. The above text is taken from BIC's Introduction to ONIX. For the full document, please click here.