Remember those dark days before ONIX standards, search
inside the jacket, or even picture of the jacket?
Contextual data , or as it in know, Metadata, is produced to
help consumers find the book, validate it and also to promote it. When the physical
bookshelf was the only option, then we relied heavily on the touchie, feely
approach and the promotional sell was to the bookshop. After all,'if it isn’t on
the shelf you can’t sell it' and bookstores often have finite shelf space at all
levels. Then came the internet and it wasn’t so much about getting it on the
shelf, but making it visible amongst the hundreds of thousand others. The onus
shifted from supplying the retailer with basic information to supplying the
consumer with rich information. Now we
are entering a new phase where the book starts to promote itself and it only
the consumer that counts.
The new industry metadata standard (ONIX), has helped define
the basic metadata and also its adoption across the supply chain. It served the
intermediary world well , but is it enough in a consumer only world where
titles are effectively on consignment and don’t have to be sold to the retailer?
Many will argue that standards and agreed data structures are
a must and without them books will just be lost in the new virtual space.
Others will counter saying that they all too often act as a straight jacket and
are still supply chain focused and not consumer orientated. Somewhere in
between lies the reality, the challenge and the opportunity.
One of the greatest constraints the standards give us is on genre
classification. We appear to have created the standard ‘tree, branch, twig’ hierarchical
approach to genre classification. This was great when you had one book and only
had one slot in a bookstore to display it, but is it really as relevant in a virtual
bookstore with infinite shelf space where the book can sit in literally
thousands of relevant slots? Is it relevant when digital content itself can
define in which genres it belongs? Is it relevant to the consumer who is
constantly finding and redefining genre and can’t wait for the standards bodies
to endorse the name? After all, by the time new vocabulary is defined in the authoritative
dictionaries, it already has been widely adopted and used.
So we now have a truly ‘mixed’ economy comprising, physical
books sold through physical stores, physical books sold through digital stores
and digital books sold through digital stores. Should the same construct serve
all three channels, or should the physical model act as a loose base, but we
adopt more appropriate and consumer facing methods for the digital world?
Amazon Kindle only allows two ‘dry’ classifications and
seven keywords, Kobo is more tolerant and PubIt is only just about to finally
go international.
Are genres truly hierarchical or now lateral? Are keywords
now more important than the headline genre? Do we find ‘books like’ through
sales or more sophisticated means? Do we enable keywords to be excluded as well
as included? How do we express multiple demographic appeal? How do we rate relevance?
How do we rate or harness genuine reviews? How do we use the content itself to
define its appeal? Do new books always come before older ones?
We don’t have the answers, but we do realise that today’s
cumbersome expressions are frustratingly restrictive and far from being engaging
and in some cases relevant. They provide a base in the digital world, but sadly
not much else.
Today, finding a new unknown title in these silos, is like
finding a digital needle in a giant digital haystack.
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