This BISG WEBCAST took place
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at 11:00 a.m. EDT.
Be
B sure t check
to h k
To register for future BISG Webcasts, please visit: your system prior to
http://www.bisg.org/event-cat-6-webcasts.php
the event!
Visit the link below. If the
Special thanks to our Webcast Sponsor: link is
li k i not clickable, copy
li k bl
The U.S. ISBN Agency and paste it into a new
browser window. Please take
any actions suggested by the
systems check.
SYSTEMS CHECK URL
http://events.meetingbridge.com/join/CheckOptions.aspx?rv=y&go=y 1

“Working to create a more
Working
informed, empowered and efficient
book industry supply chain
for both physical and digital products.”
Be sure to check
your system prior to
the event!
Visit the link to the right. If
the link is not clickable, copy
and paste it into a new
browser window. Please take
any actions suggested by the
systems check.
SYSTEMS CHECK URL
http://events.meetingbridge.com/join/CheckOptions.aspx?rv=y&go=y
2

Andy Weissberg
A d W i b
VP of Identifier Services &
Corporate Marketing
R.R. Bowker
Board of Directors
International ISBN Agency
SYSTEMS CHECK URL
http://events.meetingbridge.com/join/CheckOptions.aspx?rv=y&go=y
3

a quick audience poll...

Do you believe that digital manifestations
(specific formats, e.g., PDF, .Mobi) of books
and/or other content should to be identified
with separate ISBNs?

Do you believe that digital manifestations (specific formats,
e.g., PDF, .Mobi) of books and/or other content should to
be identified with separate ISBNs?
60.00%
50.00% Yes
52.1%
40.00%
40 00% (76 votes)
)
30.00% No
22.6%
20.00%
(33 votes)
10.00%
10 00% Not sure
25.3%
0.00%
(37 votes)
Yes No Not sure
52.1% 22.6% 25.3%
(
(76 votes)
) (
(33 votes)
) (
(37 votes)
)
Results gathered during a live participant poll.

Mark Bide, Executive Director, EDItEUR
Mark Bide is Executive Director of EDItEUR, the global trade standards organization for the
book and serial publishing industries. He is also the Project Director for the ACAP Project,
and a Director of Rightscom, the specialist media consultancy. Since the early 1990s,
Mark has been closely involved in media standardization strategies and in the design and
management of standards f id
f d d for identification and metadata i the media. H h worked i
ifi i d d in h di He has k d in
and around the publishing industry for nearly 40 years, having been a Director of the
European subsidiaries of both CBS Publishing and John Wiley & Sons. He is a Visiting
Professor of the University of the Arts London.
7

A brief introduction...

 Identifiers are “just” a special class of name
◦ Unique within a given context
 Why do we assign identifiers?
◦ Collocation – to bring together instances of the same thing
◦ Disambiguation – to distinguish things that are not the same
 What does “the same” mean?
◦ Whether things are or are not the same is always contextual
◦ For example an ISBN identifies instances as being “the same”
example, the same
for particular purposes – the meaning is not universal
 Why does this matter?
◦ Unambiguous communication…
g
◦ …particularly from machine to machine (people don’t often
use unique identifiers in discourse – “that one over there” is
usually enough)

 When there is a need to communicate across
organizational boundaries – within a supply chain…
 …particularly where anyone in the supply chain needs
to manage and aggregate information from multiple
sources
◦ That means nearly everyone, particularly in a digital supply
h l l l d l l
chain
 What matters about standard identifiers?
◦ That their semantic should be clear to everyone…
everyone
◦ …in other words, everyone in the chain knows what type of
thing they are identifying
 So, an ISBN identifies a book, right?
◦ W ll no
Well,
◦ It identifies a product in the book supply chain…but we have
tried to make the standard do so much more

Some quotes from the PersonaNonData blog
(Michael Cairns) August 4th
ISBN is Dead
I am increasingly concerned about the future health of
the ISBN. In its current form the ISBN is not yet dead but
therein lies the problem: ‘in its current form.’…
As a community, we need to recognize that the ISBN
may not b meeting its intended market need and that
be d d k d d h
the future may make this deficiency even more stark. …
Into this mix I would also add that ISBN can no longer
stand generally i d
d ll independent of other id ifi
d f h identifiers, such h
as a work ID or party ID.

 Identity is the critical item of metadata for
interoperability…
i bili
◦ …“Are we talking about the same thing”?
 The book industry recognised this very early –
y g y y
using the ISBN to identify products…
◦ …but then unfortunately went on to use the ISBN to identify
everything else…
else
◦ …and built systems that were entirely ISBN-centric (a folly
to which will return)

 The “Master ISBN” is a commonly used as a proxy “work”
identifier in publishers’ systems
◦ The ISBN used to identify both a Work and a Product
◦ Not a huge problem in the world of physical products…
◦ …but a growing one i the world of di i l ones…
b i in h ld f digital
◦ …where we can add the problem of using the same identifier
to identify two (or more) different products
 Greater granularity substantially adds t th challenge
G t l it b t ti ll dd to the h ll
◦ Granularity of digital use….many different products (different
ebook formats, different channels, different devices)
◦ G
Granularity of di it l content…many diff
l it f digital t t different it
t items of content
f t t
used in different contexts (eg the same content used in many
different learning objects)

Beginning at the beginning...

Manifestation Atoms/bits “I made it”
Perceivable
Fixation
Abstracted to
Fixed in
Actions “I did it”
Expression Spatio-
temporal
Abstracted to Expressed in
Conceptual
aka “Work”
Abstraction
Thoughts “I conceived it”
Th ht i d

Digital Asset Management as an
example of the requirement for
work identification in the
publishing process.

Works
Abstractions Manifestations Items
Abstract assets or “content” Classes of perceivable assets Individual perceivable assets
Most recent standard metadata and identifier systems (eg ONIX, FRBR, DOI, RDA, DDEX, ISTC) recognize some
variation of this model, though the exact terminology may vary
Physical Fixed, made of atoms Physical
Content
Abstract, distinct from any specific
perceivable manifestation
Digital Fixed, made of bits Digital
Manifestations are classes of physical or digital
assets with common identifiers and identical
attributes. For example: the class of all books with
the same ISBN is viewed as a single Manifestation.
An individual copy of the book is an Item
Item.

Abstractions Manifestations Items
Abstract assets or “content” Classes of perceivable assets Individual perceivable assets
eg
the words of a book or article
the image in a photograph
the figures and layout of a table
a logo
the design of a chair Physical Physical
a graph
eg, a class of eg, an individual copy of a
printed book printed book
Content music CD music CD
leaflet leaflet
sculpture sculpture
or the complete contents of
a volume of a journal Digital Digital
a magazine
g
a book of photographs and maps
eg, an individual copy of
a series of books eg, a class of
.pdf of an article
a website .pdf of an article
.mp3 of a sound recording
an academic course pack .mp3 of a sound recording
.exe of a program
a tv soap opera .exe of a program
.gif of a photograph
.gif of a photograph

This simplified example shows just one asset and
relationship of each type. In practice there may be
multiple assets of all types with relationships at all
levels including between assets of the same type
levels, type…
Abstractions Manifestations Items
Abstract assets or “content” Classes of perceivable assets Individual perceivable assets
Physical a copy of Physical
Hardback print
edition
Content Digital download Digital
Content of book

This is also simplified, but starts to show
the complexity of identification and
relationship that exists...
e ists
Abstractions Manifestations Items
Abstract assets or “content” Classes of perceivable assets Individual perceivable assets
Print on Demand
Content Digital Physical Physical
Photograph TIFF Customer copy
PDF
Digital
Content
Content of book Digital Individual
Digital Digital files in
Digital
Content Content Digital DAM
Digital System
XML
Ch
Chapter F
Foreword
d
Adobe Ebook
Digital
Content Physical Physical
MS Ebook
Hardback print
Illustration Archive copy
edition

...identifying creations.

Abstractions Manifestations Items
Abstract assets or “content” Classes of perceivable assets Individual perceivable assets
Library
Physical Physical shelf
mark
Hardback print Individual copy
ISBN edition
DOI
GS1 SGTIN (RFID)
ISTC Content
Content of book
Digital Digital Filename
ISBN ebook
File on
individual computer
DOI (any)

Some standard identifiers
suitable for identifying assets
of different types
Abstractions Manifestations Items
Abstract assets or “content” Classes of perceivable assets Individual perceivable assets
Physical Physical
ISBN (books) Individual copy
ISMN (sheet music)
DOI
UPC (products)
GS1 SGTIN (RFID)
Content EAN13 (products)
DOI (any)
ISTC (words)
DOI (any) Digital Digital
PII (articles)
ISSN ( (serials)
i l ) File on
individual computer
ISAN (audiovisual) DOI (any)
ISWC (music) ISBN (products) DOI (any)

 When there is a need to communicate across
organizational boundaries – within a supply chain
 Internal requirements for interoperability between
systems are not the same as external communication
requirements
 Never allow your operational flexibility to be limited by
the limitations or requirements of existing standards
◦ You must be able to identify what you need to be able to
identify within your own systems how, when and where you
need to identify it!
◦ …and to be able to identify the same entity with standard
id tifi when thi i an appropriate
identifier h this is i t
 Prefer standards for external communications
◦ Minimise confusion and complexity in the supply chain

...the solution to textual work
identification?

 The purpose of the International Standard Text Code (ISTC) is to
enable the efficient identification of textual works. The ISTC
provides a means of uniquely and persistently identifying textual
works in information systems and of facilitating the exchange of
information about those works between authors, agents,
publishers, retailers libraries,
publishers retailers, libraries rights administrators and other
interested parties, on an international level.
 The ISTC may be applied to any textual work, whenever there is
an intention to produce such a work in the form of one or more
p
manifestations. It provides an identification data element for
applications that record and exchange information about textual
works and related manifestations. For example, the ISTC may be
used for the purposes of collocating subsequent manifestations
of the same work or derivations of the same work in applications
involving electronic rights administration or information
retrieval.

 Textual works that are eligible for an ISTC include any
distinct abstract entity, predominantly composed of a
di ti t b t t tit d i tl d f
combination of words, that can be described to
satisfy the ISTC metadata requirements. In order to
be assigned an ISTC, the declared metadata for any
textual work at the time of registration shall contain
at least one element pertaining to the work itself that
p g
distinguishes it from every other textual work to
which an ISTC has already been assigned.
 If two entities share identical ISTC metadata they
metadata,
shall be treated as the same textual work and shall
have the same ISTC.

Different users may have different functional
requirements – so may have a different view of the
necessary granularity:
◦ Publishers may need to collocate all the different
manifestations of the same edition of a book they y
publish
◦ Retailers may need to do the same…or may need to
collocate all the different editions of “the same work”
from many different publishers
◦ Librarians may need to collocate the same work, but
distinguish between what FRBR calls different
“expressions” of “the same work”
◦ Rights management organisations may need to
distinguish between different versions of “the same
work” b
k” because of diff
f differences in rights ownership
i i h hi

 Yes… but at the expense of rather more
sophisticated metadata management than we
hi ti t d t d t t th
are used to
◦ Many relationships have to be created and managed
y p g
 And what about the problems of “fragments”
of text…
◦ …or photographs
or
 Serious system implications for everyone who
needs to manage the ISTC
 ISTC will need to f d a sustainable economic
ll d find bl
model

...why have we run into
problems & how can we
escape?

 ISBN system devised in late 1960s
◦ Initially implemented in the UK as the 9-digit SBN
I iti ll i l t d i th th 9 di it
 ISO ISBN standard (ISO 2108) first published in
1970
◦ UPC introduced in 1973, EAN-13 in 1977
 Universally adopted as the key identifier for
books in the supply chain ( g
pp y (agencies in 170
countries)
 4th Edition of standard published May 2005
◦ 13-digit ISBN – 1 January 2007
◦ Explicit guidelines for e-books
◦ Assignment to chapters/fragments

 “A separate ISBN shall be assigned to each separate
monographic publication, or separate edition of a
hi bli ti t diti f
monographic publication issued by a publisher. A
separate ISBN shall be assigned to each different
language edition of a monographic publication.”
 “Different product forms (e.g. hardcover, paperback,
Braille, audio book, video
Braille audio-book video, online electronic
publication) shall be assigned separate ISBNs. Each
different format of an electronic publication (e.g.
“.lit ,“.pdf , “.html , “.pdb ) that is published and
lit” pdf” html” pdb”)
made separately available shall be given a separate
ISBN.”

 Ease of trading
◦ Most book trade e-commerce systems require ISBNs
◦ Certainty of identification is critical for effective e-
commerce
 Ease of discovery of the different formats
available
◦ Bibliographic databases require ISBNs and users do not
want to be tied to one channel
 Collecting detailed sales/usage data
◦ If separate formats are not identified in a standard way,
sales and usage data by format cannot be easily
collected

 “We only “publish” one generic format (e.g.
.epub) and assign an ISBN to that”
epub)
 “We are not responsible for formats provided by
third part intermediaries”
 “We don’t care whether or not different product
formats are listed in bibliographic databases.”
 “Our hardware-led channels do not require
hardware led
standard identifiers and customers will find our
books through their preferred platform.”
 “Our system requires us to manually create and
manage separate ONIX records for each ISBN we
assign.”

 It avoids an explosion of identifiers
◦ Think of all the numbers you might need when you
multiply the different potential permutations of content
by the number of different formats
 But will it work in the supply chain? Not everyone
thinks so
“Each e-book title should have a unique ISBN for its
format and for its vendor. This is necessary to
endor necessar
allow librarians to easily discover who is supplying
e-books, in what format they are available and
th
through which vendors th can acquire th
h hi h d they i them.” ”
JISC Collections(UK)
Consortium for Common Information Infrastructure (the Netherlands)

1.
1 Use proprietary product identifiers in the
channel
2. Have someone else apply ISBNs in the
channel
3. Introduce yet another new identifier…
like the music industry has
y

 Advantages
◦ Some vendors already apply proprietary identifiers at the
level of individual SKUs, so no additional work
◦ Publishers don’t need to bother with proliferation of new
identifiers, and can simply issue an “ebook ISBN” (against
ebook ISBN
which vendors report)
 Disadvantages
◦ Further along the chain (eg in libraries) t e identifiers will
u t e ao gt ec a b a es) the de t e s
have no meaning (and may be impossible to manage)
◦ The information available to publishers collecting data
simply against a single ISBN may be inadequate
 The worst of all possible worlds?
◦ Identifiers which look like ISBNs but are not
 A systems driven solution – semantic and technical chaos

 Advantages
◦ Identifier familiar throughout the chain
◦ Publishers don’t need to bother with proliferation of new
identifiers, and can simply issue an “ebook ISBN” (against
which vendors report)
 Disadvantages
◦ Potentially, considerable confusion – is the channel the correct
point of granularity?
◦ P bli h
Publishers deeply di lik the id of someone else b i
d l dislike h idea f l being
allowed to identify “their books”
 Nevertheless, some wholesalers are now moving
towards getting an ISBN prefix and assigning their own
◦ “We will always prefer the publisher’s format specific ISBN and
also will link the parent ISBN [???] to our own prefixed number”

 The Global Release Identifier [GRid]
◦ Identifies… “bundles of one or more Digital
Id ifi b dl f Di i l
Resources compiled for the purpose of electronic
distribution. It is not used to identify any specific
Product hi h
P d t which contains such a Release, or individual
t i h R l i di id l
instances of the Release.”
 Purpose: to manage the proliferation of
products and the lack of an appropriate
standard product identifier
◦ The music industry has never had its own standard
product identifier
◦ Has used UPC/EAN

ISWC
Song
ISRC
Recording Recording Recording Recording
Many recordings of the same song

ISWC
Song Song Song
ISRC
Other
content
Recording Recording Recording
GRid
Release
Prop. UPC ISRC!
Product Product Product Product
Many products with the same content, but different technical characteristics, permissions etc

 Advantages
◦ Clarity of identification
 Disadvantages
◦ Implementation costs and comprehension problems
 The reality in the music industry
◦ GRid adoption has been slow
◦ Different labels are applying in different ways
ff l b l l d ff
 The labels have never been very disciplined in applying ISRC
◦ There is a huge amount of metadata required in
reporting
 Not simply “10 copies of GRid 123 sold this month”
 Standard product identifiers also required?

 Millions of books without ISBNs
◦ Should they be applied retrospectively?
◦ By whom?
 Digitisations of those millions books (with and
Di iti ti f th illi b k ( ith d
without ISBNs)
◦ Should they be given (different) ISBNs?
◦ By whom?
 Critical decisions to be made by ISBN community as
well as by those undertaking digitisations
◦ But note these two – completely different – potential
applications of ISBN should not be conflated

...the next one to watch?

From a draft of the “Draft International Standard” ( )
(DIS)
 This International Standard specifies the International Standard
name identifier (ISNI) for the identification of public identities of
parties; that is, the identities used publicly by parties involved
throughout the media content industries in the creation,
production, management, and content distribution chains.
 The ISNI system uniquely identifies public identities across
multiple fi ld of creative activity and provides a t l f
lti l fields f ti ti it d id tool for
disambiguating public identities that might otherwise be
confused.
 The ISNI is not intended to provide direct access to
comprehensive information about a public identity but can
provide links to other systems where such information is held.

 Library name authority projects [VIAF]
 Rights management
◦ Across the media
◦ Has implications (eg) for the Book Rights Registry
 Requires the development of unique identities for
publishers and imprints
 Has potential retail application but not the
main driver
◦ “Other books by this author”
Other author

 Probably simply “watch this space”…
◦ …and think about the implications for you from a
systems perspective if the system is widely
implemented
p
 If you want to influence, you need to engage
through your national body (NISO in the US)
◦ Moving towards the end of the process

Some conclusions...

 Identifiers support interoperability between systems; if all those
y g ,
systems are within the same organisation, then identifiers can
(and should) be proprietary
◦ Nobody (other than you!) cares much about how your DAM
communicates with your distribution system or your royalty system
 Don’t allow external constraints to dictate internal system
requirements
◦ Standards are for external not internal interoperability
 Short term system constraints are a poor basis for determining a
gy
strategy
◦ However persuasive those arguments are at a time of financial
constraint
 You can identify things with the same identifier as long as you
are happy always to treat them as being “the same thing” – but
when you need to d
h d distinguish b
h between them, using the same
h h
identifier will cause you problems
 Whatever you decide will be extremely difficult to undo
◦ Lumping is easier than splitting “after the event”…
p g p g

 As you need to communicate with other people’s systems,
standard identifiers become increasingly helpful – particularly
in supporting unambiguous many to many communication.
◦ Common syntax
◦ Common “identity model”
 What is being identified
 What are the granularity rules
 No single constituency in the supply chain makes decisions
about the identifiers that are going to be applied, it requires
applied
consensus
◦ It is only supply chain pressure that will be effective in “enforcing”
the consensus…
◦ …and that this may not be easy if not everyone wants standards
(for their own reasons)…
◦ …and remember that some constituencies will be more powerful
than others

 ISTC has to demonstrate that is has sufficient value to
overcome inertia (and particularly the cost of
appropriate metadata management)
◦ …and to demonstrate that it can properly fulfil the different
requirements of its very different constituencies
q y
◦ Book Rights Registry may be the tipping point
 Work collocation and disambiguation lie at the heart of rights
management
 ISBN has to resolve some significant challenges if it is
continue to be an effective identifier for the next 40
years
◦ It certainly isn’t dead but we could kill it (and will almost
isn t dead…but
certainly regret it if we do)
 ISNI, like ISTC, will need to demonstrate value
◦ …but don’t forget that the value to others may be considerable
g y

 Do we need other identifiers?
◦ Gain consensus around business requirements
◦ Gain consensus around technical requirements
◦ Then and only then specify the solution
Then, then,
 Don’t take an existing identifier and try to
use it for something for which it was not
g
designed
◦ It won’t work
◦ Y
You risk creating complete chaos….
i k ti l t h

A quick audience poll...

Now that you ve taken part in this BISG
you’ve
Webcast, what do you believe is the biggest
barrier to assigning ISBNs to digital products?

Now that you’ve taken part in this BISG Webcast,
what do you believe is the biggest barrier to assigning
ISBNs to digital products?
35.00%
30.00%
25.00%
20.00%
15.00%
10.00%
5.00%
0.00%
There are no Price of Perceived Information Current Current Other
barriers ISBNs value (or / metadata workflows digital 5.6%
11.3% 8.5% lack thereof) "bloat" make it business (8 votes)
(16 votes) (12 votes) for my 33.1% difficult to model(s)
business (47 votes) assign them don't
6.3% 19.0% necessarily
(9 votes) (27 votes) require them
16.2%
Results gathered
(23 votes) during a live
Series1 11.30% 8.50% 6.30% 33.10% 19.00% 16.20% 5.60% participant poll.

Mark Bide: mark@editeur.org
Website: www.editeur.org
Andy Weissberg: andy weissberg@bowker com
andy.weissberg@bowker.com
Website: www.myidentifiers.com
Angela Bole: angela@bisg.org
Website: www.bisg.org
W b i bi
61