London, UK  June, 2008.  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 new
versions of both the ONIX for Serials SRN (Serials Release Notification)
message format and the SPS (Serials Products and Subscription) message
formats.  Information about these formats can be found at
http://www.editeur.org/onixserials/ONIX_SRN09.html and
http://www.editeur.org/onixserials/ONIX_SPS092.html. Both formats are
currently being piloted.  Please send comments and suggestions to
brian@bic.org.uk.

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 SRN message is used for communicating information about the physical
publication or electronic availability of one or more serial
releases.  Content suppliers, content consumers and intermediaries will all
find it advantageous to send and/or receive Serial Release Notifications to
advertise the availability of new content, helping to minimize unnecessary
claims, and allowing the automatic maintenance of precise holdings in
online catalogs and link resolvers.

SRN version 0.92 contains two new messages. The ONIX SRN Content Item
Description contains metadata describing individual articles within a
release and can be used to distribute tables of contents for serial
releases.  The ONIX SRN Content Item Extended Description described
individual articles in more detail, including the same information as the
ONIXSRNContentItemDescription message, plus enough additional information
(such as subjects, abstracts and related resources) to generate entries in
abstracting and indexing databases..

SPS version 0.92 contains a revised and improved structure for transmitting
prices.  In addition, the <JournalIssue> and <Embargo> composites have been
replaced by a <Coverage> composite, providing for more precise expression
of the enumeration and chronology of issues included in a subscription product.

The EDItEUR website (http://www.editeur.org/onixserials.html) includes
links to the XML schemas for these formats as well as an overview document
and detailed user guides for implementation.

The development of ONIX for Serials has been a joint project of EDItEUR and
NISO, the US National Information Standards Organization.

About EDItEUR: EDItEUR is the international group coordinating development
of the standards infrastructure for electronic commerce in the book and
serials industries. EDItEUR is a truly international organization with 90
members from 17 countries, including Australia, Canada, Japan, South
Africa, United States and most of the European countries.

About NISO: NISO, the National Information Standards Organization, a
non-profit association accredited by the American National Standards
Institute (ANSI), identifies, develops, maintains, and publishes technical
standards to manage information in our changing and ever-more digital
environment.