This article focuses on the use of four particular data elements – the edition number, the edition version, the edition statement, and edition type codes – with a particular focus on the way in which you are expected to specify them in accordance with ONIX-related best practices.

Edition Statements

The Edition Statement on a product is a short statement that describes the nature of the edition. It might read Second edition, or Illustrated edition, or Fourth Edition (Revised).

The ONIX documentation has this to say about the EditionStatement element:

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  A short free-text description of a version or edition. Optional, and repeatable if parallel text is provided in multiple languages. The language attribute is optional for a single instance of <editionstatement>, but must be included in each instance if <editionstatement> is repeated. When used, an <editionstatement> must be complete in itself, ie it should not be treated as merely supplementary to an <editiontype> or an <editionnumber>, nor as a replacement for them. Appropriate edition type and number must also be sent, for indexing and retrieval. An <editionstatement> should be strictly limited to describing features of the content of the edition, and should not include aspects such as rights or market restrictions which are properly covered elsewhere in the ONIX record.
    Variable-length text, suggested maximum length 200 characters. XHTML is enabled in this element.

Further guidance is available from OCLC.

Taking this a clause at a time:

• A short free-text description of a version or edition

• ‘Short’ here evidently means up to about 200 characters, but that’s quite a lot of space to play with. Second illustrated edition, to accompany the 2010 re-release of the major motion picture is only 88 characters, for example.

• ‘Free text’ means you can write just about anything, and in fact you can include some HTML tags in there, so

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  Second edition, with additional commentary by translator <em>Johnny Jones</em>

is valid. Some recipients on ONIX will strip that HTML out, and some may not even check so you could end up seeing <em> on someone’s website, so use HTML with caution.

• Optional, and repeatable if parallel text is provided in multiple languages

• This highlights one weakness of the Edition Statement – that it is language specific. For this reason many data recipients prefer the use of Edition Numbers and Edition Type Codes as they are language independent, but it is always wise, and sometimes mandated by data recipients, that an Edition Statement also be included.*

• … must be complete in itself

• If you specify through the Edition Number and Edition Type Codes that an edition is the second edition with revised content, then the Edition Statement must include all of that information.

• … nor as a replacement for them. Appropriate edition type and number must also be sent, for indexing and retrieval.

• An edition statement alone is not sufficient for a non-English speaking international audience that relies on bibliographic metadata systems.

• Consonance, and other systems, will not infer from two products named Third Edition and Fourth Edition that the latter is a replacement for the former, but if you use Edition Numbers then Consonance will certainly link the products in an ONIX message automatically, and other systems will be capable of doing so.

• …should be strictly limited to describing features of the content of the edition

• There are other ways in which the form of the product, its packaging, its distribution and rights are sent through ONIX, and this is NOT the place to state Second hardback edition, for sale in South America only.

Summary

1. Make it complete

2. … but focussed only on content, nor product form or rights

3. … and use HTML with caution

4. … and use Edition Number and Type Codes as well

5. … and make sure that it is complete

We also recommend that you adopt and document a house style for Edition Statements, so as to establish whether they should be written as:

• 2nd edition

• Second edition

• Second Edition

• Edition 2

• Second edition with revised content

• Second edition (revised)

• Second Edition, Revised

  Edition Numbers

When you issue a new major version of a work, you typically create a new set of products with a new Edition Number.

The guidance that we have received from EDItEUR is that an edition should not be marked as the first until the second is created. The trade would generally infer from the existence of Edition 1 that Edition 2 either exists or is forthcoming.

The ONIX documentation states:

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  The number of a numbered edition. Optional and non-repeating. Normally sent only for the second and subsequent editions of a work, but by agreement between parties to an ONIX exchange a first edition may be explicitly numbered.

This implies that the first edition may be left unnumbered, but we’d discourage this because the creation of new, unnumbered products could then be ambiguous.

Related products

When you create a new product with a new edition number, Consonance will automatically associate the new product with the previous one when ONIX messages are generated.

The two products each gain a related product, with an appropriate code to state that this product has been replaced by this related product, or this product replaces this related product, as appropriate.

The related products are identified by ISBN, so consumers of the ONIX metadata know that people searching for an out of print product can be referred to the new version.

Edition Version

The version is described by the ONIX documentation as:

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  The number of a numbered revision within an edition number. To be used only where a publisher uses such two-level numbering to indicate revisions which do not constitute a new edition under a new ISBN or other distinctive product identifier. Optional and non-repeating. If this field is used, an <editionnumber> must also be present.

It is used for minor revisions of an edition, but in our experience is not widely used. Consonance does not provide explicit support for different impressions of a product, and it is difficult to ensure that metadata relates to the correct impressions without the issuance of a new ISBN, or timing of the release of new metadata in coordination with the switch to new stock.

Possibly a good use for the version is to indicate minor updates to eBook content, with typographic corrections, for example.

Adding a version number implies the need to also add a Revised edition type code.

Consider whether the possible use of version numbers implies that your house style should accommodate them: Second edition, version 2, or Edition 2.2?

Edition Type Codes

The ONIX documentation concisely states:

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  An <abbr title='ONline Information eXchange, an XML international standard specific to the book trade, first launched in 2000, for representing and communicating book industry product information in electronic form'>ONIX</abbr> code, indicating the type of a version or edition. Optional, and repeatable if the product has characteristics of two or more types (e.g. 'revised' and 'annotated').",