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Code Lists

About ONIX for Books code lists
Code Lists Issue 10 for Release 2.1
Code list files for loading into local systems: CSV and XML
Code lists in French

About ONIX for Books code lists
From Release 2.1 of ONIX for Books, the ONIX Code Lists are being maintained separately from any of the individual ONIX message formats.

A single set of Code Lists underpins all ONIX for Books and ONIX for Serials message formats. Some lists may be used in several, or all, of the formats (e.g. language and country codes). Some may be used in only one format. They are all maintained as part of a single set of lists, in which each list has a unique number. (The code list number carries no significance: it is simply a "dumb" reference number.) However, for practical reasons, and to avoid any confusion at the point of use, code list files extracted from this master set are published separately for ONIX for Books and ONIX for Serials.

To maintain backwards-compatibility in respect of code values as well as message formats, code values, once published, are not deleted or substantively redefined. They may, however, be marked as "deprecated", and replaced by new values; and their definitions may sometimes be revised and clarified.

Issues of the ONIX Books Code Lists are independent of the publication of new releases of the Product Information message formats. Code List issues are numbered sequentially 1, 2, 3 etc. New issues of the ONIX Books code lists have normally appeared at intervals of between six months and one year. Issue 10 is exceptional in following very closely after Issue 9, in order to complete a set of new lists for ONIX Release 3.0. However, it includes some significant additions which apply also to Release 2.1.

Code values are not now included as part of the format specifications. Instead, each specification of a coded data element includes a hyperlink to the relevant code list, and a set of HTML files carrying the latest issue of the code lists is part of the specification package. In the linked HTML files, code lists and individual codes which are new (or whose status has been changed from active to "deprecated") in the latest issue are highlighed in red.

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Code lists Issue 10 for Release 2.1
Although most code lists are common to all current releases, including 2.1 and 3.0, there are some which are used only in ONIX 3.0, and some which are used only in previous releases up to and including 2.1. To avoid possible confusion, separate documentation is provided for users who are implementing ONIX 3.0, and those who are working with an earlier release. However, the code list files supplied in CSV and XML formats for loading into local systems (see below) include the complete lists for all current releases.

If you want details of code lists for ONIX 3.0, go to the Release 3.0 Downloads page.

For any previous release, you can download two pdf documents here which detail the changes made in Issue 10 that apply to ONIX 2.1 (including all those that apply across both 2.1 and 3.0), and provide an eye-readable list of all codes, old and new, which are used in releases up and including ONIX 2.1:

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Code list files for loading into local systems: CSV and XML

Complete copies of the current code list files can be downloaded either in comma-delimited (CSV) or XML format.

CSV code list file
You can download the comma-delimited file. The file is encoded using ISO 8859 Part 1, also known as the ‘Latin 1’ or ‘Western European’ character set, which is compatible with most North American and Western European systems using versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system, and is compatible with all web browsers. Alternative versions using Unicode or character sets used by specific computer platforms or operating systems may be available on request – please email us.

The code lists are presented in numerical order. Each line in the file represents a code list entry. Each line has five fields, in the sequence as given below:

Code list number
Code value
Description – a short text statement of the meaning of the code
Notes – a longer definition where required
Issue number*

*The code list in which the code was added, or in which the status of the code was changed. The issue number is "0" for all codes issued prior to the first numbered release, and "1", "2", "3", etc for all codes issued subsequently.

Note that in issues 1-5 of the code lists, the CSV file had a line sequence number against each line in the list, as the second element of the line. For reasons related to the way in which the lists are now being maintained, this numbering has been deleted from Issue 6 and subsequent issues. If this causes a problem for your established processes please email us.

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XML Code list file
You can download the XML file here. The file is encoded using single-octet Unicode (UTF-8 – the default encoding for XML documents). Alternative versions may be available on request – please email us.

The format is as follows:
The top-level tag is <ONIXCodeTable>.
The document contains a sequence of composite elements<CodeList>, each of which contains the data elements <CodeListNumber>, <CodeListDescription>and <IssueNumber>, and a sequence of composite elements <Code>.

Each composite element <Code>contains the data elements <CodeNumber>, <CodeValue>, <CodeDescription>, <CodeNotes> and <IssueNumber>.

Here is a sample:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ONIXCodeTable>
      <CodeList>
            <CodeListNumber>1</CodeListNumber>
            <CodeListDescription>Notification or update type code</CodeListDescription>
            <IssueNumber>0</IssueNumber>
            <Code>
                  <CodeNumber>1</CodeNumber>
                  <CodeValue>01</CodeValue>
                  <CodeDescription>Early notification</CodeDescription>
                  <CodeNotes>Use for a complete record issued earlier than approximately six months before publication.</CodeNotes>
                  <IssueNumber>0</IssueNumber>
            </Code>
            ...

The content of a list in the XML format differs in some respects from that of the CSV format. In the XML format, each list opens with the list number, a description of the list, and an issue number for the list as a whole, which specifies the issue when the list was added or last changed (in addition to the issue number against each individual code value).