The VLB - then and now
1970 – In April, the Buchhändlervereinigung – today’s MVB GmbH- calls on the publishing firms to report all available titles to the planned Verzeichnis Lieferbarer Bücher by 31/05/1971. The aim is to create “a time and cost-saving aid for the daily work of the book trade”.
1971 – Starting in August, the VLB is continuously published once a year in print form. The first version contains 152,526 titles and fills two volumes
1972 - The Book Trade Data Centre (RZB) is formed and is expanded in the course of the 1970s. Initially considered a support in the creation of the print edition, the advancing technologization soon opened up completely new opportunities.
1988 - The first CD-ROM is produced
2002 –VLB goes online. This is not just a quantum leap in term of currentness; digitalisation also allowed a dramatic expansion of the publication information and thus the data quality. Since then, covers, multimedia elements, availability information and further descriptions that were often only outdated or not to be found at all in the printed VLB have become completely normal parts of the VLB.
2011 – Since June 2011, the VLB has been the official reference database for fixed shop prices in Germany and thus the central instrument for maintaining and implementing fixed prices for books. Austria followed shortly afterwards.
2014 - Introduction of the topic classification
2015 – Starting in August 2015, technical operation and development take place on internal MVB systems. This means that we can cater to new requirements quickly and flexibly.
2015 – VLB-TIX launches in December 2015. Here, publishing houses can present their new titles in optimal fashion online. The system offers booksellers outstanding opportunities for researching new titles and beyond.
2016 - Metabooks is the new umbrella brand under which the international activities of the Verzeichnis Lieferbarer Bücher (VLB) are bundled with immediate effect. At the end of August 2016, MVB GmbH and the Brazilian publishers’ association Câmara Brasileira do Livro (CBL) are the first enterprise to present the beta version of the Portuguese-language version of Metabooks at the book fair in São Paulo
2017 – Since February 2017, VLB has been able to process data in ONIX Version 3.0. It is thus one of the first catalogue databases in Germany to allow complete data mapping from ONIX 2.1 into ONIX 3.0.
2017- On 12 July, the Brazilian version of Metabooks is launched.
2019 - Metabooks Mexico is announced during the Frankfurt Bookfair by CANIEM and MVB in Oktober and subsequently launched on the 4th of December.
Today, VLB is involved practically everywhere when it comes to books and especially when books are traded. The most comprehensive directory of available German-language books is an indispensable marketing tool for the entire book industry, whether in stationary stores, in online shops or in library systems.