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.

The annual plenary meeting of ISO Technical Committee 46 Information and Documentation was held remotely 11-15 May 2020. The various standardization committees, chaired by Gaëlle Béquet, Director of the ISSN International Centre, reported on the progress of their work, in particular with regard to the final vote by ISO member organizations on the sixth version of ISO 3297 – ISSN, which is scheduled to take place in the coming months.

ISSN IC is among the organizations in liaison category A of the Technical Committee 46.

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.

Judith Zoltánné Szilvássy began her career as a librarian at the Central Library of the Budapest University of Technology from 1951 to 1957. She then worked at the Széchényi National Library from 1958 to 1991. She devoted her life and work to librarianship. She led important projects such as the establishment of the Hungarian ISDS Centre, which became the Hungarian ISSN Centre in the 1990s, the modernization of the Central Catalogue of Foreign Journals, and the launch of the National Periodicals Database (NPA). In 1990, when Hungary became a member of the Council of Europe, Judith Zoltánné Szilvássy was invited to establish the Council of Europe Information and Documentation Centre within the Hungarian Parliamentary Library. She headed this centre until 1998.

Her professional career has also been remarkable in the international arena: she served on the Board of the ISDS including as president, later the Governing Board of ISSN International Centre, from 1976 to 1992. In 1987, after the sudden death of Marie Rosenbaum, Director and Founder of the ISDS International Centre, she was Acting Director of the Centre for one year. Thanks to her language skills (English, French and German), Judith Zoltánné Szilvássy has carried out several international missions at the request of UNESCO, the Council of Europe, ISO (International Organization for Standardization) and IFLA.

Her main area of interest was periodical management. IFLA’s Serial Publications Section, which later became the Serial Publications and Other Continuing Resources Section (SOCRS), entrusted her with editing a manual on periodicals which was published in 1996 under the title Basic Serials Management Handbook. This manual has been translated into several languages (French, Russian, Spanish). It was also published in Hungarian in 2006 with updated content. By teaching librarianship to her young colleagues, she has shared her experience and knowledge with the new generation of librarians.

Judith Zoltánné Szilvássy’s career is recounted in an interview she gave in 2015 to Gaëlle Béquet, the current director of the ISSN International Centre, on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the ISSN system. Judith Zoltánné Szilvássya was already retired but showed an enduring interest in her profession. The interview was published in the special issue of the journal Ciência da informação (No. 44, 2015) of the Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia (IBICT), which manages the ISSN Centre in Brazil. The interview is available online.

The ISSN International Centre extends its condolences to the family and colleagues of Judith Zoltánné Szilvássy.

On 10 May 2020, Dr G. Mahesh, the head of India’s  National Science Library and director of the ISSN National Centre of India, accepted a new role at the ISSN Centre’s  host institution,  CSIR-NISCAIR (National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources). As a Principal Scientist, he has been appointed to  take a new position at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the umbrella organization under which CSIR-NISCAIR and 37 other such S&T organizations belong. Dr G. Mahesh will join the newly formed “Science Communication and Dissemination Directorate”. G. Mahesh is also the Project Leader and Coordinator of the National Knowledge Resource Consortium (NKRC) that facilitates access to numerous electronic resources to all the CSIR and DST Institutions in the country.

A new director of the ISSN National Centre will be appointed very soon.

The lockdown had affected the ISSN National Centre of India activities for more than a month. However, since early May, most of the ISSN services are back to normal.