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International Standard Serial Number

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Title: International Standard Serial Number  
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Subject: List of film periodicals, List of LGBT periodicals, Gary Chartier, Current Opinion, Requested articles/Natural sciences
Collection: Checksum Algorithms, Iso Standards, Library Science, Serial Numbers, Universal Identifiers
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International Standard Serial Number



The ISSN system was first drafted as an international standard in 1971 and published as ISO 3297 in 1975.[3] ISO subcommittee TC 46/SC 9 is responsible for maintaining the standard.



  • Code format 1
  • Code assignment 2
  • Comparison with other identifiers 3
    • Media vs Content 3.1
  • Availability 4
  • Use in URNs 5
    • Problems 5.1
  • ISSN variants 6
    • Print ISSN 6.1
    • Electronic ISSN 6.2
    • Linking ISSN 6.3
  • References 7
  • External links 8

Code format

The format of the ISSN is an eight digit code, divided by a hyphen into two four-digit numbers.[1] As an integer number, it can be represented by the first seven digits.[5] The last code digit, which may be 0-9 or an X, is a check digit. Formally, the general form of the ISSN code (also named "ISSN structure" or "ISSN syntax") can be expressed as follows:[6]


or by a PCRE regular expression:[7]



0\cdot 8 + 3\cdot 7 + 7\cdot 6 + 8\cdot 5 + 5\cdot 4 + 9\cdot 3 + 5\cdot 2
= 0 + 21 + 42 + 40 + 20 + 27 + 10
= 160
\frac{160}{11} = 14\mbox{ remainder }6=14+\frac{6}{11}
11 - 6 = 5
5 is the check digit, C.


There is an online ISSN checker that can validate an ISSN, based on the above algorithm.[8][9]

Code assignment

ISSN codes are assigned by a network of ISSN National Centres, usually located at UNESCO and the French government. The International Centre maintains a database of all ISSNs assigned worldwide, the ISDS Register (International Serials Data System) otherwise known as the ISSN Register. At the end of 2014, the ISSN Register contained records for 1,811,110 items.[10]

Comparison with other identifiers


Since the ISSN applies to an entire serial a new identifier, the Serial Item and Contribution Identifier, was built on top of it to allow references to specific volumes, articles, or other identifiable components (like the table of contents).

Media vs Content

Separate ISSN are needed for serials in different media (except reproduction microforms). Thus, the print and electronic media versions of a serial need separate ISSN.[11] Also, a CD-ROM version and a web version of a serial require different ISSN since two different media are involved. However, the same ISSN can be used for different file formats (e.g. PDF and HTML) of the same online serial.

This "media-oriented identification" of serials made sense in the 1970s. In the 1990s and onward, with PCs, good screens, and the Web, what makes sense is to consider only content, independent of media. This "content-oriented identification" of serials' was a repressed demand during a decade, but no ISSN's update or initiative occurred. A natural extension for ISSN, the unique-identification of the articles in the serials, was the main demand application. An alternative serials' contents model arrived with the indecs Content Model and its application, the Digital Object Identifier (DOI), as ISSN-independent initiative, consolidated in the 2000s.




  • Most serial websites contain ISSN code information.

Use in URNs

An ISSN can be encoded as a uniform resource name (URN) by prefixing it with "urn:ISSN:".[13] For example, Rail could be referred to as "urn:ISSN:1534-0481". URN namespaces are case-sensitive, and the ISSN namespace is all caps.[14] If the checksum digit is "X" then it is always encoded in uppercase in a URN.



