ISSN International Centre and EDINA at the University of Edinburgh, have agreed to collaborate to postpone the retirement of Keepers Registry.  Keepers Registry has been a Jisc funded service for the UK Higher Education sector from 2016 to 2019, but this funding will cease in July 2019.  Jisc are thanked for their funding of the service over many years.

The ISSN International Centre and its Governing Board value the Keepers Registry as part of the global identification infrastructure for serials and wish to continue to make its functionality and content available for the UK and international communities of libraries, publishers and scholars. To maintain this valuable service, ISSN International Centre aims to provide a new service from December 2019.  To facilitate this development, funding for EDINA to run the current service until the end of November 2019 is to be provided by the ISSN International Centre and the Keepers Agencies.

Pierre Godefroy, Head of Information Systems Department, and Nathalie Cornic, Head of the Metadata and Technical Coordination of the ISSN Network Department, will attend the 2nd International ISNI Summit for Libraries. Organized by the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the British Library under the auspices of CENL (Conference of European National Librarians), this summit will take place on 26-27 June 2019 at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. The aim of this meeting is to bring together ISNI adopters/users in the library sector worldwide to share their experiences in implementing ISNI.  It also aims to introduce diverse use cases and explore ways in which libraries can build stronger collaborations in order to coordinate the library sector representation in the future development and governance of ISNI.

Regina Romano Reynolds, Director of the U.S. ISSN Center and Head of the ISSN Section at the Library of Congress, gave a presentation at NASIG Annual Conference on 6 June 2019. During the session entitled Minding Your Ps and Qs: Predatory Journals, Piracy, and Quality Questions, Reynolds recounted the experiences of ISSN staff on the front lines of dealing with the full range of new publishers. She also explored the broader questions raised by the predatory publishing phenomenon. Her presentation is available online.  

Since January 2018, the ISSN International Centre has continuously been improving the ergonomy, the layout and the design of the ISSN Portal, that offers enriched and linked information to its subscribers. A logo for the ISSN Portal has been created and is now displayed on the banner of the ISSN Portal home page (https://portal.issn.org).

The ISSN International Centre has been invited to participate in ABES Annual Conference. Nathalie Cornic, Head of Metadata and Technical Coordination of the ISSN Network, will give a joint presentation with Philippe Cantié, Head of ISSN France, about the contribution of the ISSN Network in CIDEMIS. This professional application, whose acronym means Dematerialized CIrcuit of ISSN Requests, is designed to automate the management of ISSN assignment and modification requests for continuous resources reported in the SUDOC. A presentation about the latest developments of the ISSN Portal is also on the agenda.

The National Library of Nigeria (NLN) launched a new application for the assignment of international standard numbers (ISSN and ISBN) on 11 May 2019 during the Nigeria International Book Fair (NIBF).

Prof. Lenrie Olatokunbo Aina, Chief Executive Officer of the National Library Of Nigeria, explains that this application will enable librarians and publishers to track the level of legal deposit compliance, a precondition for further issuance of new standard numbers.

On April 18th, 2019, the National Book Chamber of the Republic of Moldova (NBCRM) and ISSN National Centre for Moldova organized a conference-meeting entitled: National editorial system – the National Book Chamber: Interactions and paradigms. The event was supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Research, in partnership with the Moldovan Publishers Association, the Institute for Information Society Development (IDSI), and Andrei Lupan Scientific Library (Institute).

The event included an update for stakeholders regarding ISSN, as well as other identifiers such as ISBN and ISMN, and sessions where the attendees reported back on the current status of publishing from their own perspectives.

The full press release (in English) from the conference can be downloaded here.

Gaëlle Béquet, Director of the ISSN International Centre, will chair the 2019 ISO TC46 Annual Meeting hosted by Library and Archives Canada/Bibliothèque et Archives Canada. The program includes a meeting of ISO TC46/SC9/WG5 experts who will discuss the outcomes of the 2019 DIS ballot regarding the ISSN standard ISO 3297.

The French Bibliographic Agency for Higher Education (ABES) organises every year in Montpellier, France, its annual conference with its network of academic libraries.  ABES also holds annually the SUDOC PS Network Meeting with university librarians specialized in serial identification and cataloguing.

The ISSN International Centre has been invited to participate in both events. Nathalie Cornic, Head of the Metadata and Technical Coordination of the ISSN Network, will participate in SUDOC PS Network Meeting to be held on 27 May 2019. She will give a joint presentation with Philippe Cantié, Head of ISSN France, about the participation of the ISSN Network in CIDEMIS. This professional application, whose acronym means Dematerialized CIrcuit of ISSN Requests, is designed to automate the management of ISSN assignment and modification requests for continuous resources reported in the Sudoc. A presentation of the latest developments of the ISSN Portal is also on the agenda.

Nathalie Cornic, Head of the Metadata and Technical Coordination of the ISSN Network, will attend COAR Annual Meeting to be held 21-23 May 2019 in Lyon, France.

COAR (Confederation of Open Access Repositories) vision is to work with the repository community and other stakeholders to develop a sustainable and inclusive global knowledge commons. The 2019 COAR Annual Meeting will continue efforts to foster existing relationships across countries and regions in support of global interoperability, sharing of perspectives, and knowledge exchange. The meeting will launch a dialogue with domain repositories and have presentations outlining new initiatives to support publishing functionalities on top of repositories. It will also offer opportunities for participants to discuss other current topics and trends such as FAIR data, next generation repositories and Plan S. Keynote speakers will bookend the meeting to underscore why working towards sustainable open access and open science is so important.