Subject:  5-year review of ISSN
From:  Priscilla Caplan <pcaplan@ufl.edu>
Date:  Wed, 02 Apr 2003 13:37:28 -0500

This note may be posted to multiple discussion lists; apologies for the
duplication.

The ISSN, which is international standard ISO 3297 (1998) is up for its
5-year review.  U.S. input to the review process is being coordinated by
NISO, the National Information Standards Organization.  NISO seeks your
input on the standard, and has made the document available for the
purpose of U.S. review and comment at
http://www.niso.org/standards/resources/ISO3297-1998.pdf.

You are invited to comment on the ISSN standard by sending your views to
pcaplan@ufl.edu by April 25, 2003.  Please do not reply to the
discussion list.

The questions below have been drafted to call your attention to specific
parts of the ISSN standard.  You are welcome to respond to some or all
of these questions, or to comment on any other issue related to the
standard.

1) SCOPE

i) AACR2 defines a continuing resource as "a publication that is
issued over time with no predetermined conclusion. Such a publication is
usually issued in successive or integrating issues which generally have
numerical and or chronological designations. Continuing resources
include serials such as newspapers, periodicals, journals, magazines,
etc. and ongoing integrating resources such as loose-leaf publications
and Web sites that are continually updated."

Should the scope of ISSN assignment be broadened out to refer to
"continuing resources", using this definition?

ii) Under this definition, ISSNs could be assigned to databases.  Would
this be a useful/appropriate use of ISSN?

2) CONSTRUCTION OF AN ISSN

i) Should the ISSN remain an eight-digit string, consisting of the
numbers 0 to 9 or (as the check digit only) X?

ii) Should the ISSN remain a "dumb" number, i.e. contain no meaningful
elements to identify language, country or publisher?

3) DISPLAY OF AN ISSN

i) Should an ISSN continue to be displayed (whether in print form or on
a screen) as two four-digit blocks separated by a hyphen?

ii) Should the ISSN be represented in machine-readable form as a bar code?

iii) Would it be useful to include the media format associated with the
ISSN in display?

4) ELECTRONIC VERSIONS

The current standard says that serials "published in different media
...shall [have ISSNs] assigned to the different editions".

(i) What would be a better term than "editions" - versions? formats?
manifestations?

(ii) Should the current practice of assigning different ISSNs to online,
CD-ROM and print versions only be continued?

5) METADATA

i) How should the ISSN international, national and regional centres hold
metadata related to electronic versions? (Currently, the data elements
list only includes "Physical medium" and "Has other physical medium
(media)".)

ii) Should the International Standard Text Code (ISTC) be included in
the list of data elements, acting as a common identifier underpinning
all versions and formats of a continuing resource, i.e. the ISTC would
identify the continuing resource as an abstract Work rather than its
particular Manifestation or Expression?

6) ADMINISTRATION

Should it remain the right of any interested party to apply for an ISSN,
or should this be limited to the publisher only?

**********************************************
Please send your comments to Priscilla Caplan:
pcaplan@ufl.edu.  (Do not reply to the list.)
Deadline for reply: April 25, 2003