ISSN linked data application profile

Identification and description data from the ISSN Register has been made available as linked data, in various RDF formats (RDF/XML, Turtle and JSON). This service shall foster the use, re-use, exchange and enrichment of ISSN data. ISSN linked data service is available on the new ISSN Portal, which opened in January 2018.

In order to map bibliographic information from the ISSN Register into linked data, an ISSN data model and an ISSN application profile have been designed. The data model is intended to be consistent with the overarching models developed by the bibliographic community (especially the IFLA-Library Reference Model), while taking into account the specificities of continuing resources – especially their dynamic and event-oriented nature. The ISSN application profile implementing this data model is based on popular and simple ontologies (mainly Schema.org and Dublin Core) for the most common metadata and on more specific ones (Bibframe, Marc21rdf.info) when it comes to detailed bibliographic information.

This application profile provides a support, on one hand, for the release of all ISSN Register information, including data provenance, and on the other hand for the distribution of “essential” information as linked open data. It is flexible and extensible enough to be enriched by  supplementary information (e.g. extended classification, geo-localisation…) as the basis for enhanced  services.

The ISSN linked data model and application profile are described in the attached document.

The ISSN International Centre will be pleased to receive feedback, comments and questions on this document and on any usage of ISSN linked data. Please contact portal[at]issn.org.