The ISSN International Centre, i.e. the Registration Authority for the ISO International standard 3297:2020 – Information and documentation, is proud to announce that the standard is now available in English and French. This document defines and promotes the use of a standard code (ISSN) for the unique identification of serials and other continuing resources. Thank you to the international experts who contributed to the development of this sixth version. Long live the ISSN!

Gaëlle Béquet, Director of ISSN International Centre, and Nathalie Cornic, Head of the Metadata and Technical Coordination of the ISSN Network, are invited to participate in the next DOAJ Team meeting to be held on 19 November 2020.

A brief report on the 44th Meeting of Directors of ISSN Centres has been published in the National Diet Library Bibliographic Data Newsletter, vol. 53/54. The article is available in Japanese.

The ISSN International Centre, as sponsor and partner of Challenges in the Scholarly Publishing Cycle (CISPC) 2020, will participate in the conference on Nov. 30th, 2020. Gaëlle Béquet, ISSN-IC Director, and Dominic Mitchell, DOAJ Operations Manager, will give a joint presentation. This event is organised by Research Information magazine in partnership with London Info International. The program is available.

The National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina was established on 31 October 1945 by the Regulation on the National Library of the Yugoslav Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 2020, the National and University Library of B&H (NULB&H) celebrates the 75th anniversary of its founding (31^st October).

In spite of the fact that the Library building (Vijecnica) and 90% of its valuable documentary content were destroyed in the Summer of 1992, the library has succeeded in the revival of most of its services, and it works according to the Law of Librarianship. A huge effort of reconstruction and reconstitution of catalogues and collections based on preserved collections was undertaken. Following the technological development and requirements of users, the library has gradually transformed functions and services in the attempt to adapt towards modern library and information trends. This institution represents Bosnia and Herzegovina in the international library associations, and it is home for the ISSN, ISBN and ISMN agencies.

Ms Rabab Rashwan, Director of ISSN Egypt and coordinator of the Egyptian National Publishing Committee, together with Ana María Cetto, Research Professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and founding President of LATINDEX, participate in the Working Group on Combatting Predatory Academic Journals and Conferences supported by the Interacademy Partnership (IAP). This Working Group met virtually three times in June 2020 to discuss the project’s objectives and priorities, identify key resources and stakeholders, and agree the project plan going forward. The Group’s ongoing work will be divided into four main areas: (1) defining predatory practices, (2) gauging their extent and impact, (3) interventions to help combat them, and (4) an exploration of their root causes.

Keepers Registry (https://keepers.issn.org/) is the service that aims to inform the community of librarians and publishers about the actions taken by archiving agencies across the globe to preserve titles of digitised and born-digital serial publications bearing an eISSN, in order to promote long-term access to documentary resources, and thus consolidate scientific references for the world of research. In July 2019, ISSN International Centre took over from EDINA the Keepers Registry as a natural extension of the ISSN Portal’s services. This strategic decision turns the ISSN Portal into an irreplaceable source of information about periodicals, including their preservation by the partner archiving agencies.

Gaëlle Béquet, Director of ISSN International Centre, outlines the work of the Keepers Registry – followed by interviews with four of its partner agencies: Portico (USA), Public Knowledge Project (Canada), the National Digital Preservation Program (China), and the Cariniana Network/IBICT (Brazil).

The Digital Preservation Coalition organized a 3-day virtual event to support the digital preservation community. On 22 September 2020, a presentation of Keepers Registry was scheduled, whose video recording is now available (starting at 2.15.45 in the timeline).

The Brazilian Institute of Information in Science and Technology (Ibict) held a new live for QuartaàsQuatro. The theme of the 5 August 2020 edition was “Performance of the International ISSN Centre and the National Centres of Latin America” and brought together Taina Batista, from the Brazilian ISSN Centre and Ibict researcher; Gaëlle Béquet, Director of the ISSN International Centre ; Carlos Cifuentes, from the Colombian ISSN Centre ; Guadalupe García de Rivera, from the ISSN’s Panamanian Centre; and Carlos Norberto Authier, from the Argentine Centre of ISSN. The national centres invited shared their experiences in their countries with the ISSN network.

Watch the video on YouTube or access the presentations. [in Portuguese and Spanish]

The draft of the sixth edition of ISO 3297 was put to a vote of ISO/TC46/SC9 member countries this summer. 25 out of 30 ISO/TC46/SC9 P-members have approved the draft. The sixth edition will be published in October 2020 by ISO after review of the final comments.