Towards international book trade EDI standards
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb040519 |
| Pages | 5-10 |
| Date | 01 January 1994 |
| Published date | 01 January 1994 |
| Author | Brian Green |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
Towards international
book trade EDI
standards
by Brian Green, Book Industry
Communication
The
need for
EDI standards was highlighted
at
the
'Babel'
conference as long ago
as
1986.
BIC
was
set
up
in
1991 to
be
responsible
for
their development and
promotion.
On the
European
front,
it
also
provides the secretariat
for
EDItEUR,
a pan-
European book sector EDI group which
coordinates work
in
Europe
on
the
UN global
EDI
standard,
EDI
FACT.
The article ends
with
an
appraisal
of
the benefits
of
EDI
for
all
links
in
the
chain.
Background and
infrastructure
The setting up and work of both British and
European book industry EDI organisations, is
providing unique opportunities for collaboration
between the publishing, bookselling, library and
manufacturing sectors of the industry. EDI is
already bringing many benefits, although we are
only in the early stages of true EDI, and the real
progress is yet to come.
The use of computers for more and more different
applications means that publishing houses, book-
shops and libraries throughout the world can keep
better track of their operations, making accurate
product and management information available at
all levels and in all sectors of the book industry, as
and when it is needed.
However, an enormous amount of data which
should be entered once is still keyed at various
stages of a book's life, only to be printed out, sent
by fax or post to another organisation and rekeyed
into other computers. Apart from the cost of this
rekeying, post and stationery, the process inevita-
bly introduces errors and delays, resulting in costly
queries or lost sales.
The solution — EDI
The solution to this wasteful process is to use
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), the electronic
transfer of data from one computer application to
another. But for this to work, the industry must
agree standard formats for messages and the way
in which they are applied. It is this standardisation
that makes the process independent of any specific
media, hardware or software.
EDI can mean anything from exchange of files on
magnetic tape to interactive, real-time links. It can
be direct between trading partners or use a value-
added network service with electronic mailbox
communication.
Among the candidates for EDI in the book world
are bibliographic and other product information,
price and availability updates, orders, order ac-
knowledgements, despatch notes, invoices, credit
notes,
chasers, fund transfer and sales and library
management information.
The book industry and
technology
Despite its rather old-fashioned public image as a
'profession for gentlemen', the book industry has
an excellent record of innovation and acceptance
of standards and new technology. The standard
book numbering system, providing a unique
number for each edition of each book published,
was adopted in Britain over 25 years ago and
became the International Standard Book Number
shortly after. This pre-dated the article numbering
system developed by EAN, the international
numbering association, which, uniquely in the case
of
the
book industry, agreed to incorporate the
existing (ISBN) numbering system into the
EAN
13
system, which is the basis of the standard
barcode used in all industries.
This enabled national and international product
databases to be built up and made available in
print, on-line and, for the last five years, on CD-
ROM.
ISBNs are also represented on barcodes which
have,
with very few exceptions, been standard on
all British books for the last several years.
VlNE94(March 1994)—5
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