Subject: Re: need help -- ISSNs
Arthur Smith (apsmith@aps.org)
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 09:21:08 -0500
Message-Id: <3819AD54.B9737C8@aps.org> Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 09:21:08 -0500 From: Arthur Smith <apsmith@aps.org> To: arl-ejournal@arl.org Subject: Re: need help -- ISSNs References: <19991029120937.10881.rocketmail@web1001.mail.yahoo.com>
On Fri, 29 Oct 1999, Joel Diedhiou <jdiedhiou@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Does somobody have any explanation what difference between
> electronic ISSN and its print versioncounterpart is? How do
> professionals manage to assign electronic journals their ISSN?
> Why is there a difference between the ISSN assigned to an
> electronic journal the one assigned to its print version
> counterpart.
Well, it comes somehow from the definition of the ISSN - suffice to say
it is more tied to the physical medium than to the "content". Though
note that the there are ways in which what might be called "content"
differs from one medium to another (the arrangement of "bits" or "dots"
certainly differs) and ancillary pieces of the representation, such as
HTML pages, links, etc, will also differ. So in fact we are supposed to
have a separate ISSN for print, online, and CD-ROM distribution. This
sort of manifestation vs. work identification issue has also bogged
down the DOI effort. In my opinion it should be up to the publisher to
determine whether a new ISSN or identifier is needed, not the body that
gives them out.
In practice what we do is use the electronic and CD-ROM ISSN's for
purchasing etc., but wherever an ISSN is used for content identification
(PII, SICI, other metadata, etc.) we use the original print ISSN of the
journal. In practice it's not really a problem except for the hassle of
obtaining and tracking extra ISSN's.
Arthur Smith (apsmith@aps.org)
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