ONIX for Serials - User Guides for SOH and SPS messages

London, UK  March, 2007.  EDItEUR, the international group coordinating
development of the standards infrastructure for electronic commerce in the
book and serials industries, is pleased to announce the availability of
detailed User Guides for the ONIX for Serials SOH and SPS message
formats.  Information about these formats can be found at
www.editeur.org/onixserials/ONIX_SOH1.0.html and
www.editeur.org/onixserials/ONIX_SPS091.html, respectively, with links to
the new User Guides at the foot of each page.

ONIX for Serials is a family of XML formats for communicating information
about serial products and subscription information, using the design
principles and many of the elements defined in ONIX for Books.

The SOH (Serials Online Holdings) format is used for communicating
library-specific electronic serials holdings details from publication
access management systems to libraries.  This format is in its first
production release, and has been implemented by a number of vendors,
including Serials Solutions, EBSCO and TDNet as senders and Innovative
Interfaces and OCLC as recipients.  The SOH message is of great benefit in
the maintenance of library catalogs and other end-user applications such as
link resolvers and A-to-Z lists, where up-to-date and accurate online
holdings statements are needed.

The SPS (Serials Products and Subscriptions) format is used for
communicating information about serial subscription products, optionally
with prices and specific subscription information.  The SPS format is still
in its pilot phase, and is of use in a number of situations, including the
transmission of price catalogs from publishers to agents; the transmission
of price quotes from publishers or agents to libraries; and the
transmission of a library's subscription list among publishers, agents and
libraries.

A third format, SRN (Serials Release Notification), is used for
communicating information about the print publication or electronic
availability of one or more serial releases.  Its User Guide will be
available in the near future.  Content suppliers, content consumers and
intermediaries will all find it advantageous to send and/or receive Serial
Release Notifications.  Such notifications will serve to advertise the
availability of new content, will help in minimizing unnecessary claims,
and will make possible the automatic maintenance of precise holdings in
online catalogs and link resolvers.

The development of ONIX for Serials has been a joint project of EDItEUR and
NISO, the US National Information Standards Organization.  Further
information about ONIX for Serials, including the XML schemas, may be found
on the EDItEUR website (www.editeur.org/onixserials.html).

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Katharina Klemperer, MLS
Library and Information Systems Consulting
37 Minuteman Rd.
Acton, MA 01720 USA
office: 978-266-1776
mobile: 978-590-6021
kathy.klemperer@verizon.net