I thought members of this list would be interested in knowing about
the coming changes to the ISSN and may want to give your input
to the working group. Please see the e-mail from Pat Harris below.
Attached is the document on the proposed changes.

Sue Marshall
Electronic Resources Librarian
Renne Library
Montana State University
P.O. Box 173320
Bozeman, MT 59717-3320
smarshall@montana.edu
(406) 994-4313
Fax (406) 994-2851

The ISO working group tasked to consider possible changes to the ISSN
(International Standard Serial Numbering, ISO 3279) had its first meeting
in January.  A report on the first meeting is attached. The NISO experts
participating on the working group include: Yvette Diven (R. R. Bowker), Ed
Pentz (CrossRef), and Regina Reynolds (Library of Congress).

The ISO working group is exploring several possible approaches to the
ISSN.   Over the next two weeks they will be conducting a telephone survey
to get feedback from users on each suggested scenario. They want to gauge
what the repercussions might be if any one of these scenarios was mandated
as the new ISSN standard.

If you (or your organization's ISSN/serials expert) would like to be
included in this survey please let me know and I will connect you with the
survey team.

The four scenarios that are being considered are:

1. SCENARIO A: ISSNs are assigned to each different *medium* (e.g. print vs
electronic; online vs offline; CD vs DVD) but not to each different
*format* (e.g. HTML vs PDF; SGML vs XML). This is the current situation,
although not all publishers follow it.

2. SCENARIO B: ISSNs are assigned to a serial publication at the *title*
level, to cover all versions. This is essentially making the ISSN a Work
identifier.

3. SCENARIO C: A "base ISSN" is assigned to a serial publication at the
title level (i.e. as for Scenario B), but standardized suffixes are used to
identify each media version (e.g. ISSN 1234-5678.dvd) and possibly each
format (e.g. ISSN 1234-5678.htm).

4. SCENARIO D: A "master ISSN" is assigned to a serial publication at the
title level and separate "secondary ISSNs" are assigned to different media
and/or format versions (e.g. ISSN 1234-5678 is assigned to title, 2345-6789
to the CD version, 3456-7891 to the online version, 4567-8912 to the print
version, etc.). Each ISSN would be "dumb" so a database will be needed to
link secondary ISSNs to master ISSNs.

Thanks for your interest and participation.
Pat Harris, Executive Director of National Information Standards
Organization (NISO)