The use of EDI-preferably its international version known as EDIFACT- for online ordering and claiming has worked well for years. Although EDI is well established, no one knew before how extensively EDI/EDIFACT is used. Giga Information Group, a market research firm, has now established that more than 250,000 companies and organizations are using EDI/EDIFACT, most of them for e-commerce over the Internet. Giga estimates that EDI/ EDIFACT Internet transactions will total more than $3.8 trillion in 2002.
Despite these compelling figures, book jobbers, serial subscription agencies, and libraries continue to move most orders and claims by paper. Most automated library system vendors say that the key to widespread use of EDI/ EDIFACT is for libraries to specify conformity to the standard in their RFPS for automated library systems and for libraries to press vendors of books and serials subscriptions to retrofit their systems.
