Publishing data · Software · Platforms · South Africa
We build and run the metadata pipelines, search platforms and software that South Africa's publishers, retailers and libraries depend on — every day, since 1996. Proven in publishing — engineered for whatever comes next.
What we do
Metadata, pipelines, search, software and the operations behind them, designed, built and run by people who have done this for the book trade for thirty years.
ONIX 2.1, 3.0 and 3.1 done properly: schema, codelists, Schematron rules and the retailer's own dialect. Price and availability, Thema and BISAC, cover images — validated before they leave.
Elasticsearch-backed discovery over tens of millions of titles, tuned for how librarians, buyers and readers actually look for books.
Modern web and platform products, end to end: architecture, UI, APIs, data, deployment. ASP.NET Core, Next.js, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Azure.
Daily feeds to major South African online retailers, distributor stock files, aggregator exchanges and publisher onboarding — running every day without drama.
In depth
Each one is a practice we run in production today, not a line on a brochure. Follow any of them for the detail.
ONIX 2.1, 3.0 and 3.1 done properly: schema, codelists, Schematron rules and the retailer's own dialect. Price and availability, Thema and BISAC, cover images — validated before they leave.
Secure collection, hash-verified archives and a governed merge that never loses what a supplier sent. Tens of millions of records, with field-level provenance.
Elasticsearch-backed discovery over tens of millions of titles, tuned for how librarians, buyers and readers actually look for books.
Classification, extraction and standards guidance from language models that may only choose from the licensed vocabularies — with a person confirming every change.
Modern web and platform products, end to end: architecture, UI, APIs, data, deployment. ASP.NET Core, Next.js, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Azure.
Discovery and book-procurement platforms used by South African universities, with holdings integration and approval workflows built for real institutions.
Offline-first, multilingual learning platforms built for South African connectivity, with portfolios, sign-off and verifiable certificates.
Daily feeds to major South African online retailers, distributor stock files, aggregator exchanges and publisher onboarding — running every day without drama.
Azure-native where it pays, on-premises where it must be — Key Vault, managed identity, scripted deployments and monitoring, operated by the people who built the software.
The backbone
Since 1996 we have collected, corrected and delivered the metadata for books published, represented or sold in South Africa — daily feeds to retailers, libraries and international aggregators. Provenance, validation and delivery are not features of the service. They are the service.
Every field knows which supplier said it, when, and why it won.
XSD, codelists, Schematron and completeness — nothing ships that would fail on arrival.
Daily, in the recipient's own dialect, with a ledger of what went where.
Proof
Numbers we stand behind, and the sectors that rely on them.
Who we work with
SAPnet starts supplying South African title data to the book trade.
South African records begin flowing into the international bibliographic databases; the international feed becomes available locally.
Ongoing editing and classification work on a global bibliographic database.
The metadata services continue under the current company.
ONIX 3.1 pipelines, Elasticsearch discovery for university libraries, offline-first learning platforms and AI-assisted enrichment.
Start here
A feed that must be right, a catalogue that must be found, a product that must ship — share the shape of it. We reply within one working day.
Unit 4368, Greenways, Strand, 7140, Western Cape, South Africa
< 1 working day for every enquiry · same day when a feed is down.