ONIX for Serials - User Guides for SOH and SPS messages

[Katharina Klemperer <kathy.klemperer@verizon.net>]

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).

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