ISSN and its brothers: the long march of international codes. Second part. CNR and the history of ISSN in Italy. Other identification systems

Abstract

The international bibliographic identification system based on numeric codes celebrates its 40th anniversary. The ISSN code for serial publications has been the first to be standardized by an ISO standard (3297:1975). The current paper illustrates the historical profile of the Italian ISSN Centre at the National Research Council and its current activities, describes the several other identification codes created after the ISSN (ISBN, ISRC, ISAN, DOI, NBN, ISNI etc.) and stresses the enormous information capacity of these international systems, whose possible synergy could bring huge benefits to librarians, publishers and other professionals.
(NB: this is the second part of a more extensive study. The first part has been published in AIB studi 2/2015)