TO: CNI Membership

FROM: NISO Standards Committee AP:
  Julia Blixrud (ARL), chair
  D. Jeffrey Blumenthal (Follett Corporation)
  Tanny Franco (DTIC)
  Brian Green (BIC)
  Ted Koppel (OCLC)
  Clifford Lynch (CNI)
  Mark Needleman (Data Research Associates)
  Cecilia Preston (Preston and Lynch)
  Albert Simmonds (Openly Informatics)
  Cliff Morgan (Wiley)

RE: Review of the draft BICI standard

In 1997, following the completion of the revision of the SICI standard,
NISO Standards Committee AP was tasked to develop a standard
identification schema for subunits of books.  The intent of this new
standard, titled the BICI: Book Item and Component Identifier, is to
provide a way to identify non-serial items, in the same way that the
SICI identifies serial items. Initially the Standards Committee modeled the BICI on the SICI standard.
However, in the course of its deliberations, the Committee concluded that
books are inherently more complex objects than issues of journals, and a
much richer hierarchy and encoding mechanism was needed. Two design goals
influenced the Committee's work: First, that the BICI standard should be
computable and derivable from elements that are available from the item
in-hand and from the data elements in abstracting and citation databases.
Second, that the BICI should be applicable to books regardless of their
physical manifestation (i.e. the BICI should identify items in both print
and electronic environments).

The following draft, which is being circulated to the NISO Members and the information community at large for comment, represents the
consensus-to-date of the Committee. This document is a draft subject to
change. Some sections of the document are not complete. Throughout the
document Notes identify questions and commentary for your consideration.
In particular you are asked to consider these issues:

1) As currently defined, the BICI contains mechanisms for describing   both logical components (chapters, sections, etc) and physical   components (page ranges) of items.  Are both mechanisms important?   If not, which mechanism is of more importance and more likely to   be used?  If both structures are needed, are the mechanisms   currently defined appropriate and adequate to provide those two   types of descriptions?

2) Are the mechanisms currently defined for describing hierarchical   levels of works adequate? If not, what additional mechanisms need   to be defined?

3) The current draft allows the identification of several different
  component types (figures, tables, text, etc). Are these sufficient   as described?  Are they too limited?  Too complex?  Are there   important types or formats of materials, which the draft does not   address?  Standards Committee AP welcomes all comments on these   and other issues, and thanks you for helping us produce a standard   that best meets the needs of the user community. You may comment   on the standard using the online comment form attached to the   draft document which is located at

http://www.niso.org/bicidrft.html
or
by fax: 301-654-1721; or by mail:
NISO
4733 Bethesda Ave., Suite 300
Bethesda MD 20814