Revising the ISSN ISO Standard

Abstract

ABSTRACT The ISSN ISO standard (ISO 3297) is under revision. The ISO Working Group established to prepare this revision (ISO/TC46/SC9/WG5) includes representatives of the various communities interested in publishing, distributing, accessing, and identifying serials and other continuing resources. ISO/TC46/SC9/WG5 has developed revisions to the standard and additional proposals and recommendations that should result in some very positive and exciting changes for ISSN users and the ISSN Network. This paper focuses on the most important changes that will be brought about by this revision: changes in ISSN scope, clarification of the ISSN assignment policy, development of a new concept and function-the “collocating issn”1-and development of an ISSN link data distribution and look-up service.2 The paper briefly mentions the use of ISSN in conjunction with DOIs, OpenURL, and URN, and concludes with a discussion of the place and role of ISSN users in the ISSN standard revision process and in the ISSN system.