ALA2009_Andy Weissberg (Bowker)

1. An Emerging Standard
Andy Weissberg, Vice President of Identifier Services
July 10, 2009
The Changing Standards Landscape:
Creative Solutions to Your Information
Problems

2. “The pressing need for a standard tool for
linking different printed and digital
manifestations to a common title makes the
ISTC potentially the most important standard
for our industry since the ISBN.”
-Michael Holdsworth
The identification of digital book
content – BISG White Paper

3. The International ISTC Agency
•Comprised of Founding Members representing rights/royalties
management, bibliographic collections management and discoverability
sectors
–IFRRO, CISAC, Bowker and Nielsen
•Responsible for the promotion, coordination and supervision of the
International Standard Text Code (ISTC) standard and system.
•Maintains an accurate register of the registration agency elements that
have been assigned., including metadata and administrative metadata.
•Facilitate the review and resolution of duplicate applications for or
registration of textual works.

4. ISTC – An Overview
•International Standard Text Code (ISTC), provides a means of uniquely and
persistently identifying textual works in information systems.
•ISTC will facilitate the exchange of information between every point in the
supply chain on an international level.
•ISTC makes it possible to group products (physical, digital, etc.) containing
the same content, or even in some cases, different content with the same
origins.
•ISTC will optimize discovery, improve collections management, sales and
loans analysis.
•ISTC will support emerging rights and royalties claiming and processing
procedures.

5. ISTC – Linking Works & Manifestations
Textual work
created by
author
ISTC #A
Manifestation
published in
hardback
format
ISBN #B
Manifestation
published in
paperback
format
ISBN #C
Manifestation
published as
audio-book
ISBN #D
Manifestation
published as
e-book in PDF
format
ISBN #E

6. ISTC – Structure
ISTC 0A9-2008-00000007-C
“ISTC” only precedes the code for
display purposes
3-hexadecimal character
“registration agency element”
4-digit “year element”
8-hexadecimal character
“work element”
Hyphens or spaces are for
display purpose only & are
not part of the ISTC value
Hexadecimal
Check digit

7. ISTC – Assignments
•In-copyright works rights-holders (publisher, author or agents) can
request ISTCs from an authorized ISTC Registration Agency
•Most registration agencies will be operated by bibliographic agencies and
Reproductive Rights Organizations. Current RA’s (pilot opportunities)
–Bowker
–Nielsen
–MVB (Germany) – September 2009
•ISTC assignments to out-of-copyright works may be requested by anyone,
but most likely libraries, particularly within scanning initiatives.
•ONIX for ISTC – standardized methodology for enabling assignments
•Links between works (ISTC) and products (ISBN) will be captured on
bibliographic databases utilized by search engines, libraries, retailers and
other channels providing discoverability

8. ISTC – Prospective Business Cases
•Streamlined Consumer Search & Discovery
• Efficient search behavior

●
Refined results and accuracy
in primary search vs.
intensified faceting
●
Make immediately available
multiple format options
●
Refined “happy accidents”

9. ISTC – Prospective Business Cases
•Book Rights Registry (BRR) Claiming Process
• More efficient “pre-populated”
sourcing and validation
●
Intelligent, consolidated
attribution of titles and
manifestations
•Validation use-cases
●
Product-level (format)
●
Work attributes
●
Contributors
• Future “contributor-level”
identifier interoperability
●
ISTC + ISBN + ISNI

10. ISTC – Prospective Business Cases
•Streamlined Collections Development & Mgmt.
• ISTC enhances FRBR

●
Metadata enables
consolidated edition grouping
within title-based display and
retrieval
●
Make immediately available
multiple format options
●
Optimized subject-level
search and retrieval

12. Thank You!
Questions, Answers & Comments
Andy Weissberg
Vice President of Identifier Services
908.219.0206
[email protected]
www.ISTC-International.org