About BIC - Book Industry Communication
Source: https://bic.org.uk/about
Archived: 2026-04-23 17:20
About BIC - Book Industry Communication
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Who are we?
Established in 1991, BIC is a not for profit, neutral organisation with a unique position of trust across the book industry, facilitating UK & global industry-wide collaboration to reach agreement on dependable standards and best practice guidelines in the supply chain.
We are a membership organisation at the heart of the book industry working on behalf of and in partnership with our diverse membership body. BIC was founded by The Publisher’s Association, The Booksellers Association, The British Library and CILIP (The Library and Information Association).
BIC is its members!
BIC brings order out of chaos – it is an invaluable organisation for the business of selling books.
The Booksellers Association of the United Kingdom & Ireland Ltd.
BIC is important to MDL because effecting positive change to the book industry supply chain with other organisations is paramount and some things can only be changed together.’
Macmillan Distribution (MDL
Our structure
BIC’s activities span the entire book industry supply chain and provide a platform for our member organisations to engage directly and collaborate with each other.
We are governed by a
board of directors
that oversees the strategy, focus, and direction of our 5 leadership committees:
Digital Supply Chain
,
Physical Supply Chain
,
Metadata
,
Libraries
, and
Green Supply Chain
.
These leadership committees are comprised of expert representatives from BIC member organisations: They consult across a range of conversations & topics helping to deliver efficiency & accuracy for operations through the creation and promotion of standards, best practice, training, workshops, various initiatives and accreditation schemes. We always welcome having input into our activities from ALL our members which supports and helps the sector to move forwards.
Our vision
“We make the UK book supply chain more efficient and sustainable, by developing standards and encouraging their adoption. We define best practice and connect experts and stakeholders to enable measurable innovation.”
BIC’s ‘Book Economics’ approach helps members to become more efficient, save money and become more sustainable. The heart and lifeblood of business is the supply chain. To be in the book industry is to be in the supply chain.
BIC has a unique position of trust spanning almost all aspects of the life of content:
Metadata
Book classification
Acquisition and Divestment
Production
Printing
Shipping
Sales & Ordering
Distribution
Returns
What do we do?
We create standards, deliver best practice guidelines and improve margin for our members.
We support our members with expertise, and serve the trade as a whole to positively contribute across a range of key business initiatives including:
Green supply chain and sustainability
Supply chain efficiency
Product information
Discoverability
E-commerce
Tradability
Development and promotion of standards for print and digital content
Accreditation
Training
Events
Workshops
Why join BIC?
See why organisations from all areas of the book industry
join BIC
.
How do I join BIC?
The first step is to
contact us
for a preliminary, no obligation discussion. We will ask you about your organisation type, talk you through the benefits of joining, and find out what you would like to gain from membership.
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Skip to content
Who are we?
Established in 1991, BIC is a not for profit, neutral organisation with a unique position of trust across the book industry, facilitating UK & global industry-wide collaboration to reach agreement on dependable standards and best practice guidelines in the supply chain.
We are a membership organisation at the heart of the book industry working on behalf of and in partnership with our diverse membership body. BIC was founded by The Publisher’s Association, The Booksellers Association, The British Library and CILIP (The Library and Information Association).
BIC is its members!
BIC brings order out of chaos – it is an invaluable organisation for the business of selling books.
The Booksellers Association of the United Kingdom & Ireland Ltd.
BIC is important to MDL because effecting positive change to the book industry supply chain with other organisations is paramount and some things can only be changed together.’
Macmillan Distribution (MDL
Our structure
BIC’s activities span the entire book industry supply chain and provide a platform for our member organisations to engage directly and collaborate with each other.
We are governed by a
board of directors
that oversees the strategy, focus, and direction of our 5 leadership committees:
Digital Supply Chain
,
Physical Supply Chain
,
Metadata
,
Libraries
, and
Green Supply Chain
.
These leadership committees are comprised of expert representatives from BIC member organisations: They consult across a range of conversations & topics helping to deliver efficiency & accuracy for operations through the creation and promotion of standards, best practice, training, workshops, various initiatives and accreditation schemes. We always welcome having input into our activities from ALL our members which supports and helps the sector to move forwards.
Our vision
“We make the UK book supply chain more efficient and sustainable, by developing standards and encouraging their adoption. We define best practice and connect experts and stakeholders to enable measurable innovation.”
BIC’s ‘Book Economics’ approach helps members to become more efficient, save money and become more sustainable. The heart and lifeblood of business is the supply chain. To be in the book industry is to be in the supply chain.
BIC has a unique position of trust spanning almost all aspects of the life of content:
Metadata
Book classification
Acquisition and Divestment
Production
Printing
Shipping
Sales & Ordering
Distribution
Returns
What do we do?
We create standards, deliver best practice guidelines and improve margin for our members.
We support our members with expertise, and serve the trade as a whole to positively contribute across a range of key business initiatives including:
Green supply chain and sustainability
Supply chain efficiency
Product information
Discoverability
E-commerce
Tradability
Development and promotion of standards for print and digital content
Accreditation
Training
Events
Workshops
Why join BIC?
See why organisations from all areas of the book industry
join BIC
.
How do I join BIC?
The first step is to
contact us
for a preliminary, no obligation discussion. We will ask you about your organisation type, talk you through the benefits of joining, and find out what you would like to gain from membership.
Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options
Manage services
Manage {vendor_count} vendors
Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title}
{title}
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