MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
May 1 – May 9, 2008 Edition

BISG “Certifies”
Hachette, S&S
And Waterford

NEW YORK, NY/4/28/08–The Hachette Book Group USA, Simon & Schuster and Waterford Press are the first publishers to have their product data certified by BISG under the Product Data Certification Program (PDCP), launched in February. All three companies sent data files to the BISG office to have them measured for compliance against current best practice guidelines and analyzed by a panel made up of representatives from Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, Bowker, Ingram and the Library of Congress.

The Book Industry Study Group has prepared Product Metadata Best Practices, a set of voluntary guidelines that aims to help publishers improve the quality of their product information throughout the supply chain and speed the delivery of that information to the vendors’ trading partners.

The new Product Data Certification Program (PDCP) is a new tool that helps publishers improve their production information and to evaluate quality against industry-wide benchmarks. PDCP has been designed within the BISAC Metadata Committee and is operated by the Book Industry Study Group, which for more than 30 years has been working to improve the efficiency of the US book supply chain.

Commenting on their successful certification, Hachette CEO, David Young said: “We are proud to be in the vanguard of publishers qualifying for certification and fully support this important industry-wide initiative”. Jill Smith, CEO of Waterford Press emphasized the importance of the program for all small publishers: “The BISG Product Data Certification Program came along at a perfect time for Waterford Press. I would encourage all small publishers to utilize the best practices protocol set up by BISG. Publishers can only win, as this translates to increased sales and fewer returns.”

Further announcements will be made in the near future about other publishers successfully certified under the program. BISG encourages more publishers to get involved in PDCP.

It’s not necessary to be a member of BISG to submit a file for evaluation and the program is free in the first year.

For more information about the Program, email Karen Forster at the BISG office ( Karen@bisg.org) or visit the BISG website: http://www.bisg.org/ documents/certification_productdata.html.