In the framework of the WikiProject Periodicals, the ISSN International Centre will soon upload some metadata from its ISSN Register to Wikidata. ISSN will only upload data on entries that have an ISSN filled in in Wikidata with ISSN (P236). This upload will be done by an automated bot, which will allow regular updates from the ISSN Register.

On 11 June 2020, the Keepers Registry was presented at the 35th Annual NASIG Conference by Ted Westervelt, Chief, US/Anglo Division, Library of Congress, and Willa Tavernier, Open Scholarship Librarian, Indiana University Libraries. They showed how the Keepers Registry and some of the other services offered by the ISSN IC can be used to great benefit by libraries, publishers and all those invested in scholarly communication.

See this presentation on Slideshare and the recording on YouTube.

You can also view all the recorded presentations on the NASIG YouTube Channel – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVvnh_CzXS8YgftuvIypTiQ.

Since December 2019, Keepers Registry has been provided through the ISSN Portal. Keepers Registry aggregates archival status information regarding continuing resources supplied by 13 archiving agencies.

Building upon this achievement, the ISSN International Centre has just developed and published free statistics, i.e. the number of archived resources per archiving agency, the level of archiving stewardship, the number of resources under exclusive stewardship, and the distribution of resources per publisher and per archiving agency. You will find them at https://keepers.issn.org/stats.

Educopia Institute has just published a report entitled « Bibliographic Scan of Digital Scholarly Communication Infrastructure » (May 2020) and the author David W. Lewis mentions ROAD and Keepers Registry as essential parts of the global scholarly environment.

An error crept into our last newsletter dated May 2020, in the last sentence. Please find the corrected version:

DOAJ does not allow provisional ISSNs. Applications which contain provisional ISSNs are rejected without review. Therefore, DOAJ insists that publishers, when submitting their application to DOAJ, check the ISSN Portal, and make sure that the ISSN(s) for their journal(s) is confirmed and that the title(s) match the one mentioned on their website and in their application form.

Note: Provisional records may be created for pre-publication ISSN assignment, and are only confirmed once proof of publication has been provided to the ISSN network. Provisional records can only be viewed by ISSN National Centres and not by subscribers of the ISSN Register as available at http://portal.issn.org.

Deanna White of the ISSN International Centre attended the Virtual Annual EURIG Meeting 2020 on May 18th and 19th to hear about the latest developments in RDA.
http://www.rda-rsc.org/www.rda-rsc.org/europe/meetings/2020meeting

Among all presentations, this report about RDA application in Europe is interesting.

The Romanian ISSN Centre, hosted by the National Library of Romania, contributed  to an anthology on the topic of ‘Mass Media in Romania, 30 years on”,  with a chapter on ’Serials in national statistics,’ written by Aurelia Persinaru, the coordinator of the centre. The chapter highlights the usefulness of the ISSN code and of the data-base in carrying out statistical analysis on trends emerging from the last 30 years of Romanian press, as well as the advantages of their systematic use in identifying the Romanian continuing resources. The volume offers a comprehensive overview of the evolution (and indeed revolution) that marked the national media landscape, covering topics ranging from media consumption patterns to the relationship between the press and public affairs.

Did you know that ROAD, the Directory of Open Access scholarly Resources, is a free service offered by the ISSN International Centre to support UNESCO’s policy to promote OA publications. ROAD lists a variety of OA journals, blogs, conference proceedings, academic repositories, book series which are identified and described by the ISSN network. Access ROAD at: https://road.issn.org/.

Did you know subscribers can request some modifications on an record of the ISSN Portal by completing a form? These modifications will then be automatically visible to all subscribers in red text as a proposed change until the modification is approved by the ISSN Centre responsible for the record.

For more information, please contact the Sales department: https://portal.issn.org/services.

Due to the COVID-19 global outbreak and health and social measures imposed by several national authorities, ISSN National Centres and their hosting institutions may encounter technical and operational issues. This particular situation may have an impact on the timely management of publishers’ ISSN requests and ISSN assignments. Unfortunately, the ISSN International Centre cannot currently replace impacted ISSN National Centres and manage all ISSN requests and assignments. If ISSN National Centres and their hosting institutions are temporary closed due to this crisis, the ISSN International Centre invites publishers to be patient and renew their requests regularly. We thank you for your understanding.