Authority lists versioning

[LaurenceZaysser]

Schema.org, ONIX and MARC21 are different standards with different life cycles:

• Schema.org : every time is needed , with a new version number, composed of a major and minor number (list of Schema versions);
• ONIX: code lists are updated quarterly, with a new version number (list of ONIX code lists versions)
  Nota: to be distinguished from the ONIX record versions.
• MARC21: content designators are updated twice a year, with a new version number (list of MARC21 updates)

Could you add authority lists version in the spec? These vocabularies (and their matches) are still very unstable because everyone learns by doing (and by making mistakes too).

For EPUB creators, vendors, and even authors of the spec, it would be very useful to indicate on which version of Schema / ONIX / MARC21 authority lists the mapping tables have been set. This would help with several things:

• understand the absence of some values in the columns,
• check only the new values (instead of all) introduced by the latest version of a standard in order to save a lot of time and energy in mapping them,
• anticipate the management of new values (not integrated yet in the public crosswalk), which is highly useful when production and distribution processes are parallel.

Discoverability is an important marketing issue for publishers. They need to anticipate things to enrich their information systems (production and/or distribution), to add/correct translation rules, in order to be properly referenced by vendors next to their competitors.

[LaurenceZaysser]

This ticket is partly linked to #108 - Proposing a Process for Vocabulary Updates and Community Engagement. But it does not solve the whole thing.

[mattgarrish]

Moving this to the publ-a11y repository. The publishing community group now maintains the crosswalk for publishers. If you have issues with it, please open them in the other repository.