Assessing the ISSN Register: Defining, Evaluating, and Improving Quality of a Shared International Bibliographic Database

ISSN identifiers reliably identify serials and other ongoing resources worldwide. The ISSN Register, maintained by the ISSN International Centre, is an authoritative database providing access to 1.9 million ISSN records, and fed by a network of 89 National Centres. This article presents the Data Quality Plan currently implemented by the ISSN International Centre: its objectives, its assumptions and the methodology it follows. It focuses on several projects, ran in collaboration with stakeholders of the serials supply chain or members of the ISSN Network, intended to improve quality in three domains: bibliographic data, coverage of the ISSN Register, processes and workflows.