Making up for delays caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the ISSN International Centre undertook the challenge to open two new ISSN national centres this year. Austria will open the 92nd national centre in the ISSN Network, shortly after the launch of the ISSN National Centre for Ukraine in mid-March 2021. The Hauptverband des Österreichischen Buchhandels (the Austrian Publishers and Booksellers Association), in Vienna, will host the ISSN National Centre for Austria starting April 1st, 2021.
Dr. Gaëlle Béquet, Director of the ISSN International Centre, states that “It is a great achievement for the ISSN Network to welcome Austria as a new member country and the Hauptverband des Österreichischen Buchhandels as a new ISSN Centre. Our Austrian colleagues are seasoned professionals who work closely with publishers and show great interest in serial identification activities. The ISSN International Center stands by ISSN Austria to achieve a smooth transition for the benefit of the publishing, scholarly and library communities of this country.”
Mr. Benedikt Föger, President of Hauptverband des Österreichischen Buchhandels, says: “When looking at the way the Austrian Booksellers Association has professionally operated the Austrian ISBN Agency for years, our Association becoming the Austrian ISSN National Centre feels almost predestined. So, I was all the more pleased to learn that we meet all the criteria for joining the ISSN Community”.

The ISSN International Centre is pleased to announce the opening of the 91st National Centre in the ISSN Network in Kyiv, Ukraine. Starting March 11th, the ISSN National Centre for Ukraine is  the newest registration agency under the authority granted by the International Organization for Standardization, ISO, to the ISSN International Centre. The National Centre is hosted by the State Scientific Institution Ivan Fedorov Book Chamber of Ukraine.
Dr. Gaëlle Béquet, Director of the ISSN International Centre states that “After several years of discussion, I am happy that the ISSN Network welcomes Ukraine as a new member country. I would like to acknowledge the unfailing involvement of Ms. Iryna Pogorelovska, the director of the new center, who has carried this project to its conclusion with her team. The ISSN International Center stands by the ISSN Ukraine to achieve a smooth transition for the benefit of the publishing, scholarly and library communities of this country.”
Dr. Mykola Senchenko, the Director of the Book Chamber of Ukraine, said: “The opening of the national ISSN center in Ukraine is a significant event for our state, which also celebrates the 30th anniversary of its independence. Many thanks to the ISSN International Center team for their high professionalism, close cooperation and good attitude along the way.”

DOAJ and the ISSN International Centre have enjoyed a fruitful partnership for several years. The ISSN is a requirement for journals applying to DOAJ (you have to have one to apply). ISSN IC and DOAJ are delighted to announce that DOAJ records now link back to the corresponding ISSN entries in the ISSN Portal.

See that example:  https://doaj.org/toc/0719-0581

The ISSN International Centre will participate in UKSG, to be held online from 12 to 14 April 2021.

The programme is  online.

Dominic Mitchell, Operations Manager at DOAJ, issued a presentation entitled  A Collaborative Approach to Preserving At-Risk Open Access Journals on the collaboration between DOAJ, ISSN IC/Keepers Registry, CLOCKSS, Internet Archive, and Public Knowledge Project to improve the preservation of OA journals.

This paper was presented at The Coalition for Networked Information (CNI)’s Spring Membership Meeting held online from 15-19 March 2021.

The open access version of the ISSN Portal now provides a URL link between each record in the ISSN Portal and the corresponding record in the French collective catalogue of the University Documentation System, Sudoc, if it includes location elements.

Sudoc lists all the documentary resources available in the 3,500 member libraries of its network, including nearly 600,000 records of localized continuing resources. Sudoc offers the cataloguers of its networks almost all the records of the ISSN Portal, through bi-monthly uploads of all records created or modified. In return, Sudoc contributes to the ISSN Portal through CIDEMIS application, which allows cataloguers to apply for ISSN assignments, or modifications of existing records, directly to the ISSN centres concerned.

For its 100th issue, the journal Arabesques, published by ABES (French Bibliographic Agency for Higher Education), looks in the rear-view mirror to tell how the original and rich landscape of French scientific and technical information has been built, and what place Abes occupies among its many partners, including the ISSN International Center.

This anniversary provides an ideal opportunity to acknowledge the long-standing cooperation between ABES and the ISSN International Center. Gaëlle Béquet, Director of the ISSN International Center, shows how the two organizations are complementary in their missions, as both institutions offer information services articulated on both bibliographic reference databases, the Sudoc and the ISSN Register.

(Article in French)

Bosniaca is the journal of the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is published annually and includes original professional and scientific works in library science as well as systematized practices for the management of collections. On 5 February 2021, the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina celebrated the 25th anniversary of Bosniaca with the publication of its 25th issue (2020), which is available in English and indexed in DOAJ. Bosniaca is also indexed in Web of Science, EBSCO, ErihPlus, Slavic Humanities Index, Index Copernicus, ICI Journals Master List, ROAD – the Directory of Open Access scholarly Resources, C.E.E.O.L. (Central and Eastern European Online Library), Hrčak – the central portal of Croatian scientific journals, KoBSON – the Serbian Library Consortium for Coordinated Acquisition.

The ISSN IC, with the support of Thomas Francart (SPARNA Company), has initiated a data upload project in Wikidata to validate and enrich metadata associated with continuing resources. A data model was discussed with the Wikidata community and the dedicated ISSN Bot has been designed to perform regular updates and perform synchronization between the data in the ISSN Portal and the data present in Wikidata. This project has already completed 125,118 Wikidata items corresponding to journal titles by adding specific data, i.e. ISSNs for print and online editions, ISSN-L, key title, language, country of publication and URLs.

More information about ISSN Bot data model can be found here: https://cutt.ly/VkjpCka

The ISSN Review Group, represented officially by Regina Romano Reynolds, Director of ISSN USA, Library of Congress, with assistance from Deanna White, Project Officer at ISSN International Centre, presented two proposals to the MARC Advisory Committee (MAC) meeting, held on 26 January 2021. Ms Reynolds is the ISSN’s long-standing voting member of MAC and valued MARC expert.  The proposals can be read on the MAC website regarding the type of continuing resource: https://www.loc.gov/marc/mac/2021/2021-03.html  and regarding the subfields added to field 022 (ISSN):  https://www.loc.gov/marc/mac/2021/2021-04.html .

As a result, newly defined values for the type of continuing resources code will be useful for faceting and statistical reporting in the ISSN Portal; also, a URI subfield in the ISSN field (022) will serve as an authoritative work identifier for the serial in linked data.