Confusing a Silo with a Business

The strategy of organizing content around a common topic such as legal or medical information is mature in information publishing. As other publishers mimic the strategy of organizing their content into silos they would be wise not to confuse their efforts with community building or market making. Users are interested in accessing validated, useful and important topical information but this could just as easily be web based content as it is published content. Often it is just that.

Whereas information companies formally organized their businesses around topics (medical, tax, legal, etc.) more than 15 years ago they quickly understood that their customers needed more. Initially, it was often the integration across what had been independent databases that produced the most utility for their users and, their early work led to the development of taxonomies, search techniques and applications which enabled work flow integration. But nothing stands still and as the information business continues to evolve what is happening currently in information should be of interest to all publishers. In short, their experience suggests it may be simplistic to believe establishing a silo of content will produce a community of willing publishing consumers.

Having built platforms supporting information products, information companies now recognize that their customers are looking for integration across subject areas. Importantly, the customers are looking for ways to validate a much wider pool (ocean) of potentially useful and important information. To Thomson Reuters (and others) the silo increasingly looks like a pyramid and they have have begun to conceptualize the management of information and data using this framework. In part, this has to do with the excessive growth of information: Increasingly information providers are as useful to their customers as filters of a vast catalog of information as they are providers of tools, techniques and proprietary data. Consequently, information providers are beginning to see themselves providing access to as much content and information as possible - available on their platforms - and then progressively adding value to the consumer as they move up the pyramid in terms of need and application.

At the top of the pyramid are those publisher specific technologies and content that provide the most value to customers. Companies like Thomson Reuters recognize customers have broad needs and thus there is business logic to providing different services at each level of this pyramid as well as integration points with companies outside the Thomson Reuters family. Inherent in this approach is the recognition by Thomson Reuters and others that it may not be possible to operate in a closed environment any longer. The information space is simply too large to organize in the manner in which information aggregated content in the 1990s. The more addressable issue is to provide consumers with the information critical to their needs and filter that information or content such that it is unambiguous.

The lesson for less advanced publishers is that building a concentration around siloed content is not enough; in-fact, aggregating consumer interest and appeal around publishing content will fail unless that concentration includes content from the web, television, radio, newspapers, magazines, etc. which is also organized, validated and served up in the most effective manner for the consumer. Information publishers have been able to evolve their model to support the needs of their professional customers but the consumer market is more anarchic and it remains to be seen whether trade publishers can pull it off. Silos may not be worth the effort.

MediaWeek (Vol 3, No 31): Swedish Reality Policing, Mockingbird, Twain, OCLC, Follet, Watches and Copyright

The Observer suggests that Candace Bushnell started it all - chick lit that is (Observer):

Before Candace Bushnell, books like Gould's that sought to capture the dilemmas and dichotomies of modern womanhood with a wry, humorous honesty, were almost unheard of. For decades, the experiences of ordinary women had been largely overlooked by the literary world: either it was recounted in fictional terms (as in Mary McCarthy's The Group) or it was relayed anonymously by feminist polemicists and social historians (Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique). Bushnell changed all that. When she started writing her first-person columns for the New York Observer in 1994, she won a considerable following for her acerbically witty portrayal of the Manhattan singles scene, with its Martini bars, non-committal men and cruel, almost Whartonesque mating rituals. The newspaper columns based on the sexual experiences and romantic intrigues of Bushnell and her three friends became a bestselling book, which in turn became a hit television show and then spawned a film franchise that has evolved into a multi-media juggernaut of product placement and tie-in beauty products.

Truth is stranger than fiction in Sweden (Observer):

What had originally alerted the police to Lindberg's predilections was an incident in July last year in which a multimillionaire 60-year-old man was found dead beneath a balcony in a salubrious Stockholm suburb. According to police, the man had been running an illicit sex network delivering women to groups of men. Apparently on the day of his death he had been expecting the arrival at his home of an 18-year-old girl. Instead a gang of men turned up and issued a vicious beating. Shortly afterwards the man either jumped, fell or was pushed from the balcony. On the dead man's desk, investigating police found the phone number of the police chief, Lindberg. It all reads like a plotline from Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy or a Wallander novel, with the striking exception that in this case it was a Wallander-style policeman who was the architect and not the detective of the crime. "The villains in Mankell's stories are all of a piece," says Lars Linder, chief cultural critic on the daily paper Dagens Nyheter. "They are scoundrels and usually connected to very wealthy or fascist networks. Whereas the thing about Lindberg is that he's so absolutely politically correct on the outside and kinky on the inside."

Newsweek has a book issue and among the articles are the following (Newsweek): Harper Lee and writing To Kill a Mockingbird:

The story behind To Kill a Mockingbird is more common—and richer—than it is sensational. We like to think of writers, like heroes, as isolated beings. To an extent, it’s true; writing is often lonely and painful, a confrontation between the self and the blankness of the page. But a book is also shaped by the system of editors, agents, publishers, teachers, and readers. Harper Lee did have help in writing To Kill a Mockingbird. It takes nothing away from her accomplishment to realize that the dynamic interplay between individual effort and structural support is particularly pertinent to Lee’s story. Writing is like most important things: individual greatness matters, but it’s not enough by itself. It’s a lesson, in fact, that echoes an overlooked theme of her book.

Mark Twain's Memoir:

Twain is remarkable several times over. He was a self-invented prose stylist, a fantastically failed businessman, and one of the few writers of his time willing to directly address the evils of slavery and racism. But surely the most remarkable thing about him is that he is still funny. How many of us can name another comic writer or a humorist who’s been dead for a century? Even readers who know Hawthorne and Dickinson couldn’t pick their comic contemporaries Petroleum V. Nasby or Josh Billings out of a lineup. Most comics’ material dies before they do, but Twain’s humor stays surreally fresh. For his debut on what was then known as the lecture circuit, in San Francisco in 1866, he had the handbills printed to read “Doors open at 7 1/2. The trouble will begin at 8.” Call it a threat or a promise, but he made good on that claim all his life. He’s still making good on it.

Obligatory Selfpublishing article:

Until recently, reviewers and booksellers looked down on self-published authors the way Anna Wintour scorns Dress Barn. Now new writers and established authors alike are increasingly taking publishing into their own hands, and the publishing establishment is paying attention.

OCLC were sued by small database company Skyriver for monopolistic practices under the Sherman and Clayton anti-trust statues (Complaint):

This case is about defendent OCLC's exclusionary agreements, punative pricing, unlawful tying arrangements, and its refusal to deal with for-profit firms in violation of the anti-trust laws in order to maintain its monopolies and to destroy a new entrant into the market for library cataloging services in competition with OCLC.

Additional information is also found (and presumably updated) here:

On July 29, 2010 SkyRiver Technology Solutions filed an antitrust lawsuit against OCLC. This page provides resources related to the lawsuit. This page aims to gather resources relevant to this event.

Innovative Interfaces (III) is joining in the complaint (coincidentally they share a corporate owner) and the III business is also potentially challenged by OCLC (Lib Tech)

In a move that has stirred some controversy in the library automation industry, OCLChas announced that it will extend World Cat Local, initially positioned primarily as a discovery tool, to provide a complete suite of services for the automation of libraries. Work is now underway to create services associated with WorldCat Local that perform circulation, resource fulfillment, acquisitions, and license management. Taken together, these services will obviate the need for a library to operate its own integrated library system.

(The above was also taken without attribution in the complaint). Follett Teams with Blackboard to Offer CafeScribe Digital Texts (PW):

Gary Shapiro, senior v-p, intellectual properties for Follett, told PW that CafeScribe works much the same for professors, allowing them to insert original class materials, library citations, video or other multimedia sources material, or individual class notes, directly into textbook content. This material can then be distributed digitally across study groups while keeping it connected to the orginal text. Indeed professors can add all kinds of material without changing the original textbook content. Isabella Hinds, Follett director of digital content, said Follett offers about 10,000 texts in the CafeScribe technology and the partnership with Blackboard will allow students to eaily click through to the Follett online store. Students can also use the campus bookstore to purchase an access code and download the CafeScribe texts. CafeScribe Texts are discounted from 25% to 50% off the hardcover list price.In addition to CafeScribe, Follett's product line includes digital or hardcover titles as well as rental textbooks for as much as 50% less than buying. “Students can rent, by new or buy digital,” Hind said. Follett titles are available through about 870 campus bookstores.

Amazon and Facebook combine in creepy integration (Media Raw):

Amazon just tapped Facebook to offer site visitors a personalized page where they can see product recommendations influenced by friends, as well as their own tastes. Participating users will also get notifications regarding friends’ birthdays, along with targeted suggestions about what to buy them. Social Beat describes the deal as “one of the social network’s most important integrations yet.

There's an important case regarding copyright that has reached the Supreme Court. From the WSJ: Watch Out For the Omega Copyright Windup:

Stewart's hard-scrabble scribbler would be pleased to learn that a Supreme Court case scheduled to be argued in the coming term could put the kibosh on library lending, at least of those books published or printed outside the U.S. In a friend-of-the-court brief, the American Library Association and other library groups argue that a recent Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision "threatens the ability of libraries to continue to lend materials in their collections." The librarians fear they are going to suffer collateral damage from a curious copyright case that has nothing to do with books. It's Costco Wholesale Corporation v. Omega, S.A.—a battle over whether the storied Swiss watch brand can control where and at what price its chronometers are sold in the U.S. Omega, you see, sells its watches for far less money in some countries than in others, a common enough practice known to economists as "geographical price discrimination." The U.S. market will generally bear more than the market in a Latin American republic, and so Omega offers its goods to distributors in places such as Paraguay for less than it does to American distributors.

On the twitter from this week (@personanondata): The odd first: Penguin chief executive John Makinson: direct to consumer model does not work. The Bookseller Knooks for Nooks: Barnes & Noble Plans Big Push for Nook E-Reader - NYT Tough business: Whitcoulls, Borders owner expects to breach loan covenants. NZPA Pearson acquires another language school: Pearson To Acquire Wall Street Institute For $92M Cash WSJ The Real Cost of College Textbooks - Online debate at NYT

Repost: Presuming No Book

Originally posted on 2/17/09:

Henry Ford said “They can have any color as long as it’s black” and, in so doing, summed up what industrial production is all about. What we gain in scale, we ultimately lose in choice becoming - in the process - beholden to the manufacturer to deliver to us what they believe we desire. Manufacturing has obviously come a long way since the age of Henry Ford, and a few industries have even become so flexible that consumers sometimes don’t believe they are receiving specifically made products. I remember the Japanese bike manufacturer that had so improved their production processes that they could measure a client for any model of bike in one of their showrooms, build it and ship it to the customer the next day. The problem: Customers didn’t believe the bikes were made to fit since they received them so quickly. The solution: Hold production for a week and then send out the bikes.

It would be a stretch today for anyone in publishing to agree to the proposition that the future of their business could depend on not publishing a ‘finished’ product. As the industry meanders forward, we are reaching the point when presuming (and, I think, limiting) how a consumer is going to use content will significantly restrict the potential market. Historically, a publisher would codify how their content was to be used by signing a series of agreements for versions in audio, large print, foreign language, book club, etc. Not only are those agreements increasingly cumbersome they are identifiably restrictive as more and more potential consumers are seeking out content which is flexible to their particular situation and purpose ie: I’ll take the French, large print, audio version please: Only they can’t - at least not legally. Making this concoction easy for a consumer to access may seem like a small market opportunity but the point is much larger: Let the consumer decide how they want to use and engage with your content.

There is a huge preoccupation with e-Books today. E-Books are a format and a distribution mechanism and, as such, not particularly interesting. To me, the issue is a little like discussing the capabilities of a new type of printer. The real interest lies in the changing production processes that enable the rendering of content on e-Readers. Not perfect yet (by any means) and many publishers are still vandalizing print files to get to the format they need for the Kindle or what-have-you. Some may recall that, through the 1990s, consultants and publishing “know-it-all’s” spoke about developing production processes that were independent of format, suggesting the end product could appear in any form. Automation and changed processes have, of course, been implemented, but no one reached the point where they could produce multiple versions of the same product in an infinite number of formats and combinations.

At the Start With XML conference (and subsequently at TOC), we witnessed the dawning of a new type of publishing. Fully customizable, adaptable and capable of matching the particular needs of the consumer, XML content will enable the type of flexible delivery of content that is coming. Companies such as SharedBook are positioned to facilitate the unanticipated, unique and creative ways a consumer may want to use your content. And, as a publisher, you should be comfortable with enabling the consumer to - in effect - make his or her own product. As an example, a publisher can make content available to consumers during what historically may have been considered the production process: Consumers can comment, add their own notes and links, perhaps add their own content and, at the point the consumer is satisfied they have a product they want, they can ‘publish’ it. That point of publishing may or may not coincide with the publishers’ date and, in fact, the publisher may not ever ‘complete’ their books in a traditional sense but allow them to live and breath and enable any future consumer to decide when they want to ‘publish’.

Experiments such as those at Future of the Book have enabled a dialog between reader, author and other readers that may allow a ‘user’ to chose to ‘publish’ their book whenever they are ready, even as the conversation continues online.

When the consumer does publish this title, they do it their way. As a publisher, I may be investing in an XML-based content warehouse, but if I continue to think of the traditional output (i.e., printed books where I select cover, trim size, paper or eBooks where I select the formats and ‘extras’) then my XML investment is under utilized. I will also be short-changing my customers. As publishers, we need to experiment (and educate authors) but I don’t need to (or can’t) presume how my customer is going to use the content; all I need to do is to ensure that they have the ability to use it any way they want.

Across all media, we haven’t reached that spot yet. We still presume, based on a limitation of the technology we had at hand, about what our consumers will purchase and how they will use the material. Certainly, there are ‘degrees’ of XML and perhaps some publishers only have a title and header (for Chapters) tag for their titles, but others are experimenting and building more sophisticated products. Any buyer of a business book, for example, should be able to access the full content, read it and hear it, translate it, create a presentation in PowerPoint or download a ‘business briefs’ version. If they want, the user should be able to gain access to the document so if they want to print 75 copies of selected chapters for their executive outing and bundle the content with other material, they can do so.

In the near future, publishers may decide not to print or ‘publish’ a finished product themselves. Aside from selected titles – maybe most front-list where (only as an example) volume may play a role - a publisher may not print any books. Rather, they will enable retailers to print their titles based on demand. Barnes & Noble prints all the titles they carry in their stores for example. They are effectively on-demand with very little, or no inventory carry. B&N has the ability to use the ‘content’ however they want in print form: From premium boxed and signed versions to mass market. In another example, Michael’s the crafts store, enables its customers to integrate ‘how to’ content from a publisher such as F&W into their scrap-book projects or print selected chapters from books at an in-store kiosk.

But these are a small subset of the breadth of content distribution that could occur if publishers stop limiting themselves from thinking about the traditional ‘book’. As described, the application of flexible publishing using XML as a base is easier to comprehend for some publishing segments than others. However, even novels can be read as comic books: long form is always singled out as ‘oh, but we can’t do that with Christie’. Perhaps, but maybe your customers can and enabling that will generate more revenues and more customer satisfaction. A real challenge would be to turn a comic into a long-form novel.

Lastly, some argue that the publishing industry is doomed as the tools to reach customers become easier to access and use. That presupposes that the publishers and the industry remain static. The future isn’t static and, while some publishers are going to fail, those publishers that presented at the Start with XML conference such as Cengage, Simon & Schuster, Hachette and others prove that innovation and experimentation are alive and our future may not be so dire.

French For Bridge: France 1966

Suspended Bridge, Brittany France 1966

A weekly image from my archive. Click on the image to make it larger.

In the summer of 1966 the family packed up the car and went on our first family vacation to France. Actually it was my grand dad's station wagon and his presence on this trip five years into my parents marriage presaged his presence in almost every roll of film taken until about 1988. No matter the location. Or time of year. Or whether we were on vacation or not. This despite the fact he had four or five bed and breakfast hotels he owned in Manchester.

I remember little about this trip although I do remember it was a very hot August and we had to sprint across the beach because the sand got so hot. No doubt we traveled across this 'bridge' thingy and there may even be some in the audience that know where this is. I haven't a clue and I doubt it is still there.

Dot.Book and An Internet of Things

As eBook versions of books become the rule and paper versions the exception, difficulties in product identification will continue to manifest themselves and, while we are years away from eBook dominance, product identification issues are already straining the capability of the ISBN system. The solution may lie in the humble URL.

Recently, Daniel Ek, co-founder and CEO of Spotify (a music subscription service), commented in a Telegraph interview “We need to understand that this is not about MP3 files anymore; the MP3 file has become the URL and through that unique identifier I can send you something and you’ll be able to know what it is and listen to it.” Ek may be exaggerating the current state of affairs in the music supply chain, but he was comparing the physical chain (CD) with the electronic and he is probably correct about the advancing importance of the url in music. Unwittingly, Ek may be predicting how eBooks are to be identified in the coming years.

In an “internet of things” world where my TV speaks to my fridge and everything we own can have its own URL, is it possible that all books - both physical and electronic - will carry their own identifier? Would this be useful? What would this mean for the ISBN and the current methods for identifying publishing products? Most importantly, would the publishing industry be able to control (perhaps ‘manage’ is a better word) this eventuality so that the industry ensures it will harvest the benefits that the ISBN has engendered for 40 years?

There were two critical aspects to the success of the ISBN standard and, obviously, adoption within the publishing industry was one of these. Equally important was the integration with other standards and standards groups.

ISBN has long participated in the global standards community overseen by the International Standards Organization (ISO), and the results of these important relationships go largely unseen by the general publishing community. One relationship in particular is the relationship with EAN/UCC which resulted in the allocation of a block of EAN prefixes to the ISBN standard and ensured compatibility between ISBN and EAN/UCC. As a result of this relationship, ISBN is an equal beneficiary in a global supply chain dependent on the EAN/UCC standards. The ISBN prefixes (978/979) are colloquially referred to as “Bookland EAN” partially because all other EAN prefixes are geographically allocated. The global adoption by ISBN of the 13-digit syntax now represents full inter-operability between ISBN and EAN/UCC. (EAN/UCC is now named GS1).

This ‘lesson’ in working with other standards groups is one which may presage our approach to evolving the ISBN as more content becomes referable via URL, as Ek opines is the case in music.

The Internet is on the verge of a migration of its own to Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), which will enable more IP addresses than most people could ever imagine. As this happens over the coming years (beginning next year), the number of addressable items is likely to explode as the ‘internet of things’ evolves. Publishing and the ISBN community should consider how best to participate and manage this migration to their advantage by working with the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) to define an approach that mimics the relationship ISBN forged with GS1. If the ISBN community were able to define an equivalent IP ‘range’ – a Dot.Book if you will – the publishing industry may be able to successfully migrate the ISBN standard and maintain the advantages of the ISBN to which we have all become accustomed. If they move fast, the ISBN community maybe able to get there sooner than the pace at which the industry is migrating to eBooks and eContent. A solution could be ready and waiting –and it’s better we do it than wait for someone else to come along and do it for us.

MediaWeek (Vol 3, No 30): Google Acquires Metaweb, UK eBook Loans (or not), Education and NCLB, HRH Queen Elizabeth and Flickr

Google buys database company metaweb. This has wider implications for anyone creating, maintaining and licensing/selling bibliographic or product type databases. Maybe Google data about things (Freebase) becomes more than 'good enough' (Google Blog)

Over time we’ve improved search by deepening our understanding of queries and web pages. The web isn’t merely words—it’s information about things in the real world, and understanding the relationships between real-world entities can help us deliver relevant information more quickly. Today, we’ve acquired Metaweb, a company that maintains an open database of things in the world. Working together we want to improve search and make the web richer and more meaningful for everyone. With efforts like rich snippets and the search answers feature, we’re just beginning to apply our understanding of the web to make search better. Type [barack obama birthday] in the search box and see the answer right at the top of the page. Or search for [events in San Jose] and see a list of specific events and dates. We can offer this kind of experience because we understand facts about real people and real events out in the world. But what about [colleges on the west coast with tuition under $30,000] or [actors over 40 who have won at least one oscar]? These are hard questions, and we’ve acquired Metaweb because we believe working together we’ll be able to provide better answers. In addition to our ideas for search, we’re also excited about the possibilities for Freebase, Metaweb’s free and open database of over 12 million things, including movies, books, TV shows, celebrities, locations, companies and more. Google and Metaweb plan to maintain Freebase as a free and open database for the world. Better yet, we plan to contribute to and further develop Freebase and would be delighted if other web companies use and contribute to the data. We believe that by improving Freebase, it will be a tremendous resource to make the web richer for everyone. And to the extent the web becomes a better place, this is good for webmasters and good for users.

In the UK the debate over supplying eBooks via the library system is generating some strong opinions (FT):

“The free loan of e-books by libraries should not be possible,” wrote Tim Godfray, chief executive of the Booksellers Association, in a letter to the Department for Culture, Media & Sport this year. “The free loan of e-books is very different from the free loan of printed books.” Critics say that if reading a library e-book is too similar to the experience of reading a purchased e-book, some consumers will simply forgo the latter option, cannibalising sales. Others question why the state should fund the purchase of e-books, when the readers libraries target most (such as low-income groups and communities with low literacy rates) are unlikely to own an e-reader. Yet, libraries adopting the e-book model say they have taken this into account. “That’s why we go for formats that people can download on to their phone or their computer. Because most people have got a phone and access to a computer, whether at home or at school,” says Sue Wills, a librarian at Kensington and Chelsea, which recently began to offer e-books by means of Overdrive (see box below) and by Bloomsbury’s Public Library Online.

Education Sector a think tank focused on education take a look at no child left behind and current education policy (Quick and the Ed)

And while I’m sure Duncan also wouldn’t put this this way, he’s actively contributing to the steady and increasingly successful rhetorical and political attack on the various maddeningly stupid personnel practices that teachers unions continue to defend. Weakened by their unapologetic opposition to the heroic and defense of the indefensible, teachers unions are struggling with the famously difficult task of managing an organized retreat. I have mixed feelings about all of this. On the one hand, I think the federal government is shifting toward a role in education that fits better with what it can plausibly accomplish: creating and catalyzing standards, investing in information systems, research, and innovative practices, focusing its limited (in the grand educational scheme of things) resources on the students and schools that need help the most. And I, too, have been galvanized by great charter schools. If you honestly believe that helping non-profit organizations give a high-quality education to impoverished children is a bad idea, we have little to discuss. At the same time, the short- and mid-term implication is little or no attention to students in roughly the 20th to the 70th percentile of school quality, however defined. Charter school networks are unevenly distributed geographically, and even the best can’t grow exponentially over a sustained period of time. Many state departments of education balked when they were legally required to improve the worst schools. How many are going make hard choices when they simply have the option of improving mediocre schools?

Reuters UK reports the Queen is following my lead and putting her holiday snaps up on Flickr (Reuters):

The Monarchy Website Flickr account streams both up-to-the-minute images of royal engagements and archive photographs from the royal collection.The launch is timed to coincide with the summer opening of Buckingham Palace, as the site highlights photographs specially commissioned for the palace's exhibition "The Queen's Year," which opens on July 27.The Flickr account also features historic photographs from current Royal Collection exhibitions at The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle and on loan to museums and galleries around the UK.They include masterpieces of early British photography collected by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

From the twitter: Ron Marshall the CEO who left Borders after less than a year has now been asked to leave his subsequent CEO position at A&P: AP: A&P CEO steps down as loss widens:shares plunge AP What a run of bad luck - for shareholders. Pearson Buys Sistema Educacional Brasileiro Learning Unit for $499 Million - Bloomberg How thieves target rare books BBC With U of Tennessee Rollout, OCLC's Cloud-Based ILS Enters Early-Adoption Phase LJ Bertelsmann + Holtzbrinck join forces to create online distribution platform to sell e-books The Bookseller Sherlock Holmes is back… sending texts and using nicotine patches Observer

Repost - Data Sync: The Next Coming of Biblio Data - Repost

Originally posted June 22, 2007

A number of years ago while President of Bowker I attended a conference organized by our EDI provider General Electric (GXS) where they discussed the application of a budding industry product information process referred to as data synchronization.

In contrast to the publishing industry most industries do not have standard industry wide product catalogs. Books benefit in this respect from the universal acceptance of the ISBN and few if any industries have a standard numbering system that supports product databases like booksinprint, Nielsen bookdata, titlesource and IPage. Data synchronization represents an attempt to make common, up to date and harmonious, standardized item and location information between trading partners. In English, trading partners have access to the same ‘data pool’ of item information which is continuously up to date and enables harmonization between the data pool and the respective item databases at each trading partner. From the GS1 site:

Global Data Sync Network is an automated standards based global environment that enables secure and continuous data synchronization which allows partners to have consistent item data across their systems all the time. It ensures that all the parties in the supply chain are working with the same data – allows for simplified change notification and saves time and money for all organizations by eliminating steps to correct inaccurate data.

While my participation at this particular meeting was pooh poohed by my boss at the time it had me worried. The BIP database is licensed to many entities in the publishing industry and if trading partners in the publishing business got together to exchange data a la data synchronization then our business could be in jeopardy. In recent years, a number of companies in the grocery, soft goods and hardware businesses have implemented data synchronization with substantial numbers of their trading partners. The process is complicated and certain standards and formats govern the implementation; however, benefits can be substantial including less re-keying of data, better in-stock positions, better marketing promotions and fill rates and many other benefits which are documented in the following presentations (1,2,3).

While I was worried about the impact the development of a publishing data pool could have on the Bowker business, the irony is that the BIP database is the ultimate data pool - the like of which doesn’t exist in any other industry. No doubt that is the thinking of BookNet Canada which has embarked on a project that may ultimately result in the creation of a data pool for the North American publishing industry. BookNet Canada has the remit to improve the publishing supply chain in Canada, and Bowker (while I was President) helped them establish an industry EDI service and sales reporting tool. For data synch they are working with Comport Communications the only certified data pool provider in Canada. The successful implementation of data synch in Canada could become a (the) prototype of a subsequent larger implementation in the US and/or UK. Interestingly, the Canadian books in print database is a hybrid of US BIP and UK BIP and which BookNet Canada also look to develop. (Bowker has the current incumbent product).

The implications for BIP products are fundamental but not catastrophic (although I will leave it to them to figure out why) but the larger issue is the potential radical shift in the traditional use of book product information and the ensuing significant improvement in supply chain information. We are a few years off yet but the benefits will come none too soon.