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ISSN

Serial number used to identify a periodical publication

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The ISSN system was first drafted as an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) international standard in 1971 and published as ISO 3297 in 1975. ISO subcommittee TC 46/SC 9 is responsible for maintaining the standard.

When a serial with the same content is published in more than one media type, a different ISSN is assigned to each media type. For example, many serials are published both in print and electronic media. The ISSN system refers to these types as print ISSN (p-ISSN) and electronic ISSN (e-ISSN). Consequently, as defined in ISO 3297:2007, every serial in the ISSN system is also assigned a linking ISSN (ISSN-L), typically the same as the ISSN assigned to the serial in its first published medium, which links together all ISSNs assigned to the serial in every medium.

Code format

An ISSN is an eight-digit code, divided by a hyphen into two four-digit numbers. The last digit, which may be zero through nine or an X, is a check digit, so the ISSN is uniquely represented by its first seven digits. Formally, the general form of the ISSN (also named "ISSN structure" or "ISSN syntax") can be expressed as follows:

NNNN-NNNC

where N is in the set {0,1,2,...,9}, a decimal digit character, and C is in {0,1,2,...,9,X}; or by a Perl Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE) regular expression:

^[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{3}[0-9X]$.

For example, the ISSN of the journal Hearing Research, is 0378-5955, where the final 5 is the check digit, that is C=5. To calculate the check digit, the following algorithm may be used:

Each of the first seven digits of the ISSN is multiplied by its position in the number, counting from the right, that is, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, and 2, respectively, and the resulting products are added:

0⋅8+3⋅7+7⋅6+8⋅5+5⋅4+9⋅3+5⋅2=0+21+42+40+20+27+10=160.

The remainder of this sum modulo 11 is then calculated: 16011=14 remainder 6=14+611

If there is no remainder, the check digit is 0; otherwise the remainder is subtracted from 11. If the result is less than 10, it yields the check digit: 11−6=5. Thus, in this example, the check digit C is 5.

If the result is 10 (that is, if the remainder is 1), the check digit is an uppercase X (like a Roman ten).

To confirm the check digit, calculate the sum of all eight digits of the ISSN multiplied by their position in the number, counting from the right. (If the check digit is X, add 10 to the sum.) The remainder of the sum modulo 11 must be 0. There is an online ISSN checker that can validate an ISSN, based on the above algorithm.

In EANs

ISSNs can be encoded in EAN-13 bar codes with a 977 "country code" (compare the 978 "bookland" country code for ISBNs), followed by the 7 main digits of the ISSN (the check digit is not included), followed by 2 publisher-defined digits, followed by the EAN check digit (in most cases, this will not match the ISSN check digit, since they are each calculated in a different way).

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