Data exchange between the German ISSN national centre at the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek in Frankfurt and the ISSN International Centre in Paris is now based on the OAI-PMH protocol. In this new framework, ISSN cataloguers in Germany directly produce ISSN records in the cataloguing environment of their institution; these records, as soon as they are validated by the system, are automatically exposed through a dedicated “ISSN set” in MarcXML (Marc 21) through the library OAI-PMH server, thus allowing the staff at the ISSN International Centre to regularly feed (on a weekly basis) the ISSN register with this harvested output through a dedicated script.
For the management of ISSN assignments and the production of ISSN records, the German ISSN National centre was previously using the dedicated Osiris software, based on CDS-ISIS, the well known bibliographic tool supported by Unesco. Osiris had been specifically developed for the ISSN network in 1990 and has been used by a number of ISSN member countries over the years.
This new workflow, which is the result of a carefully planned project, is much more efficient and sets an example for other national ISSN centres which may also contribute data to the ISSN Register with more frequent and streamlined data updates.