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'ISO2' -- Obsolete informational reference (is this intentional?): RFC 2141 (Obsoleted by RFC 8141) -- Obsolete informational reference (is this intentional?): RFC 2611 (Obsoleted by RFC 3406) -- Obsolete informational reference (is this intentional?): RFC 3044 (Obsoleted by RFC 8254) -- Obsolete informational reference (is this intentional?): RFC 3187 (Obsoleted by RFC 8254) -- Obsolete informational reference (is this intentional?): RFC 3406 (Obsoleted by RFC 8141) Summary: 0 errors (**), 0 flaws (~~), 5 warnings (==), 11 comments (--). Run idnits with the --verbose option for more detailed information about the items above. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 IETF URNbis WG M. Huttunen 3 Internet-Draft J. Hakala 4 Obsoletes: 2288,3187 (if approved) The National Library of Finland 5 Intended status: Standards Track A. Hoenes, Ed. 6 Expires: April 20, 2012 TR-Sys 7 October 18, 2011 9 Using International Standard Book Numbers as Uniform Resource Names 10 draft-ietf-urnbis-rfc3187bis-isbn-urn-01 12 Abstract 14 The International Standard Book Number, ISBN, is a widely used 15 identifier for monographic publications. Since 2001, the URN 16 (Uniform Resource Name) namespace "ISBN" has been reserved for ISBNs. 17 The namespace registration was performed in RFC 3187 and applied only 18 to the ISBN as specified in the ISO Standard 2108-1992, now known as 19 "ISBN-10". To allow for further growth in use, the successor ISO 20 Standard, ISO 2108:2005, has defined an expanded format for the ISBN, 21 known as "ISBN-13". This document defines how both of these ISBN 22 standard versions can be supported within the URN framework. 23 Moreover, additional syntax related information required by the RFC 24 2141[bis] has been included. An updated namespace registration is 25 provided. It describes how both the old and the new ISBN format can 26 share the same namespace. 28 This document replaces RFC 3187; it also obsoletes and moves to 29 Historic status the predecessor thereof, RFC 2288. 31 Discussion 33 This draft is an outcome of work started in 2008 and brought to the 34 IETF initially as a private contribution. When the URNBIS working 35 group was launched, revision of the ISBN namespace registration was 36 included in its charter. 38 Comments are welcome and should be directed to the urn@ietf.org 39 mailing list or the authors. 41 Status of This Memo 43 This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the 44 provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. 46 Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 47 Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute 48 working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- 49 Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. 51 Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months 52 and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any 53 time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference 54 material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." 56 This Internet-Draft will expire on April 20, 2012. 58 Copyright Notice 60 Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the 61 document authors. All rights reserved. 63 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal 64 Provisions Relating to IETF Documents 65 (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of 66 publication of this document. Please review these documents 67 carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect 68 to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must 69 include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of 70 the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as 71 described in the Simplified BSD License. 73 This document may contain material from IETF Documents or IETF 74 Contributions published or made publicly available before November 75 10, 2008. The person(s) controlling the copyright in some of this 76 material may not have granted the IETF Trust the right to allow 77 modifications of such material outside the IETF Standards Process. 78 Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling 79 the copyright in such materials, this document may not be modified 80 outside the IETF Standards Process, and derivative works of it may 81 not be created outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format 82 it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other 83 than English. 85 Table of Contents 87 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 88 2. Conventions used in this document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 89 3. Fundamental Namespace and Community Considerations . . . . . . 5 90 3.1. The URN:ISBN Namespace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 91 3.2. Community Considerations for ISBNs . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 92 4. International Standard Book Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 93 4.1. Overview / Namespace Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . 6 94 4.1.1. ISBN-10 Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 95 4.1.2. ISBN-13 Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 96 4.1.3. Relation between ISBN-10 and ISBN-13 . . . . . . . . . 7 97 4.2. Encoding Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 98 4.3. Resolution of ISBN-based URNs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 99 4.3.1. General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 100 4.3.2. Practical Aspects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 101 4.4. Additional Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 102 5. URN Namespace Registration and Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 103 5.1. URN Namespace ID Registration for the International 104 Standard Book Number (ISBN) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 105 6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 106 7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 107 8. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 108 9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 109 9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 110 9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 111 Appendix A. Draft Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 112 A.1. draft-hakala-rfc3187bis-isbn-urn-00 to 113 draft-ietf-urnbis-*-00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 114 A.2. draft-ietf-urnbis-rfc3187bis-isbn-urn-00 to -01 . . . . . 20 116 1. Introduction 118 One of the basic permanent URI schemes (cf. RFC 3986 [RFC3986], 119 [IANA-URI]) is 'URN' (Uniform Resource Name) as originally defined in 120 RFC 2141 [RFC2141] and now being formally specified in RFC 2141bis 121 [I-D.ietf-urnbis-rfc2141bis-urn]. Any identifier, when used within 122 the URN system, needs its own namespace. In August 2011 there were 123 44 registered URN namespaces (see [IANA-URN]), one of which belongs 124 to ISBN, International Standard Book Number, as specified 2001 in 125 RFC 3187 [RFC3187]. 127 Since 2007, there have been two variants of ISBN in use; an outdated 128 one based on ISO 2108-1992 [ISO1] and a new one defined in ISO 2108- 129 2005 [ISO2]. These versions shall subsequently be called "ISBN-10" 130 and "ISBN-13", respectively, in this document. If what is said in 131 this document applies to both ISBN versions, the generic term "ISBN" 132 is used. 134 As part of the validation process for the development of URNs, the 135 IETF URN working group agreed that it is important to demonstrate 136 that a URN syntax proposal can accommodate existing identifiers from 137 well established namespaces. One such infrastructure for assigning 138 and managing names comes from the bibliographic community. 139 Bibliographic identifiers function as names for objects that exist 140 both in print and, increasingly, in electronic formats. RFC 2288 141 [RFC2288] investigated the feasibility of using three identifiers 142 (ISBN, ISSN and SICI, see below) as URNs, with positive results; 143 however, it did not formally register corresponding URN namespaces. 144 This was in part due to the still evolving process to formalize 145 criteria for namespace definition documents and registration, 146 consolidated later in the IETF into RFC 3406 [RFC3406]. That RFC, in 147 turn, is now being updated as well into RFC 3406bis 148 [I-D.ietf-urnbis-rfc3406bis-urn-ns-reg]. 150 URN Namespaces have subsequently been registered for both ISBN 151 (International Standard Book Number) and ISSN (International Serial 152 Standard Number) in RFCs 3187 [RFC3187] and 3044 [RFC3044], 153 respectively, but not for SICI (Serial Item and Contribution 154 Identifier), mainly due to the identifier's limited popularity. 155 Moreover, URN resolution process for SICIs would be complicated. 157 Guidelines for using ISBN-10s (based on ISO 2108:1992) as URNs and 158 the original namespace registration have been published in RFC 3187 159 [RFC3187]. The RFC at hand replaces RFC 3187; sections related to 160 ISBN-13 have been added, all ISBN-10 information has been updated and 161 the namespace registration revised to make it compliant with both 162 ISBN versions and stipulations of RFC 3406bis 163 [I-D.ietf-urnbis-rfc3406bis-urn-ns-reg], the work-in-progress 164 successor of RFC 3406 [RFC3406], which in turn had replaced the 165 legacy RFC 2611 [RFC2611] applied in the initial registration. 167 2. Conventions used in this document 169 The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", 170 "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this 171 document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119]. 173 "ISBN-10" refers to the original, 10-digit ISBN scheme specified in 174 ISO 2108-1992 [ISO1]. 176 "ISBN-13" refers to the current, 13-digit ISBN scheme specified in 177 ISO 2108-2005 [ISO2]. 179 3. Fundamental Namespace and Community Considerations 181 3.1. The URN:ISBN Namespace 183 ISBN is a well established standard identifier system for monographic 184 publications. Therefore, any useful and deployable method for 185 identifying these entities for network-wide reference and making 186 their metadata available on the Internet needs to be based on ISBNs. 188 3.2. Community Considerations for ISBNs 190 ISBNs are assigned under the auspices of the International ISBN 191 Agency [ISBNORG] and national/regional ISBN agencies. ISBN 192 assignment is a well managed and understood process, but as in any 193 process administered by humans errors do take place. If so, there 194 are procedures in place for fixing the incorrect ISBNs. 196 Books are finite objects, which may consist of component parts such 197 as chapters or short stories / novellas. Such component parts may 198 given their own ISBNs if and only if they are available separately. 199 The ISBN standard does not allow augmentation of the ISBN of the book 200 with (URI) fragments for identification of the book's physical 201 component parts. If a fragment identifier is added to an ISBN, the 202 resulting namespace specific string will not be an ISBN; it could be 203 another identifier such as a national bibliography number (NBN). 205 In late 90s there was an attempt to develop BICI (Book Item and 206 Contribution Identifier) but the standard was neither completed nor 207 implemented. BICIs would have been based on ISBNs, and the idea was 208 to generate them programmatically for e-books containing structured 209 metadata. The applications needed for this failed to materialize. 211 The materials identified by an ISBN may exist only in printed or 212 other physical form, not electronically. And even if an electronic 213 book exists, access rights may be limited. When the identified 214 manifestation of the book cannot be suplied, the URN:ISBN resolver 215 SHOULD supply descriptive and rights metadata about the relevant 216 manifestation. The resolver MAY also provide links to other 217 manifestations of the same work, or to related works. ISBN-based URN 218 resolution services may support a wide variety of information 219 services related to books. 221 National libraries are among the key organizations providing URN 222 resolution services for books. Many of them are currently digitizing 223 their historical printed books collections. As a rule, a digitized 224 book does not get an ISBN, especially if the original printed book 225 did not have one. Instead, national bibliography numbers are often 226 used for identification. In such cases the digital copy MAY be found 227 with the ISBN of the printed original. 229 For library users and Internet-based supply chain management for the 230 delivery of monographs, URN:ISBN-based identification and resolution 231 services offer efficient, reliable and persistent access to resources 232 and/or resource-related services. The users will not need special 233 tools for this; Web browsers are sufficient. 235 The next chapter presents an overview of the application of the URN: 236 ISBN namespace and the principles, and systems used, for the 237 resolution of ISBN-based URNs. 239 4. International Standard Book Numbers 241 4.1. Overview / Namespace Considerations 243 An International Standard Book Number (ISBN) identifies a product 244 form or edition of a monographic publication. Each product form 245 (e.g. hardcover, paperback, PDF) MUST have its own ISBN. 247 4.1.1. ISBN-10 Structure 249 The ISBN-10 is defined by the ISO Standard 2108-1992 [ISO1]. It is a 250 ten-digit number (the last "digit" can be the letter "X" as well) 251 that is divided into four variable length parts usually separated by 252 hyphens when printed. Note that these hyphens can be removed; ISBNs 253 with and without the hyphens are lexically equivalent. The parts are 254 as follows (in this order): 256 o a group identifier that specifies a group of publishers, based on 257 national, geographic, or some other criteria; 259 o the publisher identifier; 261 o the title identifier; and 263 o a modulo 11 check digit, using X instead of 10; the details of the 264 calculation are specified in [ISO1]. 266 ISBN-10 was in use from 1970s until ISBN-13 replaced it in January 267 2007. 269 4.1.2. ISBN-13 Structure 271 ISBN-13 is defined by the ISO Standard 2108-2005 [ISO2]. The ISBN-13 272 is a thirteen-digit number that is divided into five parts usually 273 separated by hyphens when printed. The first and the last part have 274 a fixed lenght, but the other parts have variable length. These 275 parts are as follows (in this order): 277 o a prefix element of ISBN-13 is a 3 digit prefix specified by the 278 International ISBN Agency; at the time of this writing, legal 279 values were 978 and 979; future versions of the standard may 280 define additional values; 282 o a registration group element that specifies the registration 283 group; it identifies the national, geographic, language, or other 284 such grouping within which one or more ISBN Agencies operate; 286 o the registrant element; 288 o the publication element; and 290 o a modulo 10 check digit; the details of the calculation are 291 specified in [ISO2]. 293 4.1.3. Relation between ISBN-10 and ISBN-13 295 The structural differences between the ISBN-10 and ISBN-13 are the 296 prefix element (which does not exist in the ISBN-10) and the check 297 digit calculation algorithm, which is modulo 11 in ISBN-10 and modulo 298 10 in ISBN-13. 300 Terminology in ISBN-10 differs substantially from the terminology 301 applied in ISBN-13. In this document, ISBN-13 terminology shall be 302 used from now on; for a reader used to ISBN-10 terminology, the 303 following mapping may be useful: 305 o ISBN-10 group identifier <-> ISBN-13 registration group element; 306 o ISBN-10 publisher identifier <-> ISBN-13 registrant element; 308 o ISBN-10 title identifier <-> ISBN-13 publication element. 310 Any ISBN-10 CAN be converted to ISBN-13 form, and retrospective 311 conversion is the recommended practice in ISO 2108:2005. Any 312 application that processes ISBN-based URNs MUST be prepared to deal 313 with both ISBNs, since ISBN-10 numbers may not be converted to the 314 new form. ISBN-13s using prefix element 979 can not be converted 315 back to ISBN-10, since in these ISBNs group identifiers will be re- 316 assigned. New books may still have ISBN-10 alongside ISBN-13 for 317 practical reasons, but only as long as the prefix element in ISBN-13 318 is 978. 320 4.2. Encoding Considerations 322 Embedding ISBNs within the URN framework does not present encoding 323 problems, since all of the characters that can appear in an ISBN are 324 valid in the namespace-specific string (NSS) part of the URN. 325 percent-encoding, as described in RFC 2141bis 326 [I-D.ietf-urnbis-rfc2141bis-urn], is never needed. In order to 327 improve readability of the NSS, hyphens MAY be used. 329 Example 1: URN:ISBN:978-0-395-36341-6 331 Example 2: URN:ISBN:951-0-18435-7 333 Example 3: URN:ISBN:951-20-6541-X 335 Example 3: URN:ISBN:951206541X 337 4.3. Resolution of ISBN-based URNs 339 4.3.1. General 341 For URN resolution purposes, all elements except the check digit (0-9 342 for ISBN-13, previously 0-9 or X) must be taken into account. The 343 registration group and registrant element assignments are managed in 344 such a way that the hyphens are not needed to parse the ISBN 345 unambiguously into its constituent parts. However, the ISBN is 346 normally transmitted and displayed with hyphens to make it easy for 347 humans to recognize these elements without having to make reference 348 to or have knowledge of the number assignments for registration group 349 and registrant elements. In ISBN-10, registration group element 350 codes such as 91 for Sweden were unique. In ISBN-13, only the 351 combination of prefix and registration group elements is guaranteed 352 to be unique. 978-951 and 978-952 both mean Finland, but 979-951 and 353 979-952 almost certainly will not (once they will be assigned in the 354 future); at the time of this writing, registration group element(s) 355 for Finland are not yet known for ISBNs starting with 979. 357 The Finnish URN registry is maintained by the national library. The 358 service is capable of resolving ISBN-based URNs. URNs starting with 359 URN:ISBN:978-951 or URN:ISBN:978-952 are mapped into appropriate URL 360 addresses in a table maintained within the registry. Applications, 361 such as the national bibliography or the open archive of a 362 university, can use the URN as the persistent address of the 363 resource. There is just one place (the URN registry) where the the 364 address is mapped to one or more physical locations. 366 ISBN-13 prefix / registration group element combinations (and the 367 corresponding ISBN-10 registration group identifiers, if any) usually 368 designate a country, but occasionally a single combination / ISBN-10 369 group identifier is used to indicate a language area. For instance, 370 "978-3" (or "3" in ISBN-10) is utilised in Germany, Austria, and the 371 German speaking parts of Switzerland. As of this writing, there are 372 two regional registration groups: "978-976" is used in the Caribbean 373 community and "978-982" in the South Pacific (see [PREFIX]). 375 Note that the prefix and registration group element combination 376 "979-3" has not yet been assigned. There is no intention to allocate 377 the registration group elements in the same way as was done with 378 ISBN-10. 380 The registrant element may or may not be used for resolution 381 purposes, depending on whether individual publishers have set up 382 their resolution services. 384 The publication element shall enable targeting the individual 385 publication. 387 4.3.2. Practical Aspects 389 Due to the lack of URN support in, e.g., web browsers, the URNs are 390 usually expressed as URLs when embedded in documents. The Finnish 391 URN registry is located at , and URNs are therefore 392 expressed in the form http://urn.fi/. For example, the URI 393 identifies Sami Nurmi's 394 doctoral dissertation "Aspects of Inflationary Models at Low Energy 395 Scales". 397 Any national URN registry can resolve URN:ISBNs with foreign 398 registration group element values if a) there is a URN:ISBN 399 resolution service for that country, b) the national resolution 400 service is aware of the existence of the foreign service and how to 401 find it, and c) the two resolution services can communicate with one 402 another. PERSID project () developed such an 403 infrastructure for the URN:NBN namespace. 405 Alternatively, instead of linking the national resolvers together, it 406 is also possible to build international resolvers which copy 407 resolution data from several national services, or to create a way 408 station which will enable the resolvers to communicate with one 409 another. We can assume that the network of URN:ISBN resolvers will 410 grow, and at the same time the set of services they support will also 411 grow and become more diverse. Such development might make these 412 union resolvers and way stations more important. 414 If a registration group element does not identify a single country 415 but a language area, there are at least two means for locating the 416 correct national bibliography. First, it is possible to define a 417 cascade of URN registries - for instance, German, Austrian and Swiss 418 national registries, in this order - which should collectively be 419 aware of resolution services such as national bibliographies for 420 ISBN-13s starting with "978-3". If the German registry is not able 421 to find an authoritative resolution service, the request could be 422 passed to the Austrian one, and if there are still no hits, finally 423 to the Swiss service. 425 Second, the registrant element ranges assigned to the publishers in 426 Germany, Austria and Switzerland by the ISBN Agencies could be 427 defined directly into the national registries. This method would be 428 more efficient than cascading, since the correct resolution service 429 would be known immediately. The choice between these two and 430 possible other options should be made when the establishment of the 431 European network of URN registries reaches this level of maturity. 433 In some exceptional cases -- notably in the US and in the UK, where 434 international companies do a significant portion of publishing -- the 435 information provided by the group identifier may not always be fully 436 reliable. For instance, some monographs published in New York by 437 international publishing companies may get an ISBN with the 438 registration group element "3". This is technically appropriate when 439 the headquarters or one of the offices of the publisher is located in 440 Germany. 442 Information about such a book may not always be available in the 443 German national bibliography, but via the Library of Congress 444 systems. Unfortunately, the German/Austrian/Swiss URN registries 445 that should in this case be contacted may not be aware of the 446 appropriate resolution service. 448 However, the problem posed by the international publishers MAY be 449 less severe than it looks. Some international publishers (Springer, 450 for example) give the whole production to the national library of 451 their home country as legal deposit, no matter which country the book 452 was published. Thus everything published by Springer in New York 453 with registration group element "3" should be resolvable via the 454 German national bibliography. On the other hand, when these 455 companies give their home base also as a place of publication, the 456 "home" national library requires the legal deposit. 458 A large union catalogue, such as WorldCat maintained by OCLC 459 [OCLC-WC] CAN be used to complement the resolution services provided 460 in the national level, or as the default service, if no national 461 services exist or are known to the registry from which the query 462 originates. 464 Due to the semantic structure of ISBN-13, the registrant element CAN 465 be used as a "hint". Technically, it is possible to establish a 466 number of URN resolution services maintained by different kinds of 467 organizations. For instance, "978-951-0" is the unique ISBN 468 registrant element of the largest publisher in Finland, Sanoma-WSOY. 469 Resolution requests for ISBNs starting with "978-951-0" CAN be passed 470 to and dealt with the publisher's server, if and when it is made URN- 471 aware. In such a case, resolving the same URN in multiple locations 472 MAY provide different services; the national bibliography MAY be able 473 to provide bibliographic information only, while the publisher CAN 474 provide the book itself, on its own terms. Resolution services MAY 475 co-exist and complement one another. Same ISBN CAN be resolved both 476 as URN and as a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) [DOIHOME]. URN-based 477 services hosted by, e.g., a national library, MAY provide only 478 bibliographic metadata, whereas a service based on the DOI system 479 provided by the publisher MAY supply the book, parts of the book or 480 various other services. 482 Persistence is one of the key features for any persistent identifier 483 system. There are three inter-related aspects of persistence that 484 need to be discussed: persistence of the resource itself, persistence 485 of the identifier, and persistence of the URN-based resolvers. 487 ISBNs are assigned to manifestations (physical embodiments) of books. 488 Printed books tend to be persistent, so even after 500 years, a URN: 489 ISBN identifying a printed book CAN resolve to a bibliographic 490 description of the book, which MAY contain the location of the book. 492 With digital books things get more complicated. Each product form 493 MUST have a separate ISBN, but digital manifestation will not be 494 long-lived. Anyone who tries to use a 100-year old e-book will 495 probably be disappointed. Manifestations of an e-book should be 496 interlinked (using, for instance, the work level metadata record) so 497 as to make a user aware of the existence of these product forms. 499 This will enable the user to retrieve the form which matches his / 500 her interests best. Some users MAY prefer a modern manifestation 501 although it MAY not have the original look and feel, while other 502 users want the original manifestation which is authentic but MAY 503 require digital archaeology for access. 505 Manifestations of e-books, like other e-resources, are not required 506 to be persistent per se, but require successive migrations into new 507 file formats. URN:ISBN SHOULD support information architectures 508 which enable persistent access to the relevant intellectual content 509 (work), independent of its form, although ISBN SHOULD NOT be used to 510 identify the works themselves. 512 URN resolvers are not static. The services they'll supply will 513 change over time, due to changes in technical infrastructure. For 514 instance, implementation of long term preservation systems will 515 enable and necessitate a set of new URN resolution services. 517 Persistence of resolvers themselves is mainly an organizational 518 issue, related to the persistence of organizations maintaining them. 519 As URN:ISBN resolution services will be supplied (among others) by 520 the national libraries to enable access to their legal deposit 521 collections, we may assume that URN:ISBN resolution services will be 522 persistent. 524 4.4. Additional Considerations 526 The basic guidelines for assigning ISBNs to electronic resources are 527 the following: 529 o Product form and the means of delivery are irrelevant to the 530 decision whether a product needs an ISBN or not. If the content 531 meets the requirements of the standard, it gets an ISBN, no matter 532 what the file format of the delivery system. 534 o Each product form (manifestation) of a digital publication should 535 have a separate ISBN. The definition of a new edition is normally 536 based on one of the two criteria: 538 * A change in the kind of packaging involved: the hard cover 539 edition, the paperback edition and the library-binding edition 540 would each get a separate ISBN. The same applies to different 541 formats of digital files. 543 * A change in the text, excluding packaging or minor changes such 544 as correcting a spelling error. Again, this criterion applies 545 regardless of whether the publication is in printed or in 546 digital form. 548 Although these rules seem clear, their interpretation may vary. As 549 already RFC 2288 [RFC2288] pointed out, 551 The choice of whether to assign a new ISBN or to reuse an existing 552 one when publishing a revised printing of an existing edition of a 553 work or even a revised edition of a work is somewhat subjective. 554 Practice varies from publisher to publisher (indeed, the 555 distinction between a revised printing and a new edition is itself 556 somewhat subjective). The use of ISBNs within the URN framework 557 simply reflects these existing practices. 559 Mistakes can happen. For instance, an ISBN has sometimes been re- 560 used for another book. These reasonably rare kind of human error do 561 not threaten or undermine the value of the ISBN system as a whole. 562 Neither do they pose a serious threat to the URN resolution service 563 based on ISBNs. The error described above SHOULD only lead into the 564 retrieval of two bibliographic records describing two different 565 monographic publications. Based on the information in the records, a 566 user can choose the correct record from the result set. 568 Libraries routinely correct ISBN mistakes. Their catalogs provide 569 cross references ("incorrect ISBN -> correct ISBN"). This MUST be 570 taken into account in the URN resolution process. Further details on 571 the process of assigning ISBNs can be found in section 5 (Namespace 572 registration) below. 574 5. URN Namespace Registration and Use 576 The formal URN Namespace Identifier Registration for the pre-2005 577 version of the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) was done in 578 RFC 3187 [RFC3187]. 580 The new ISBN standard does not require a new namespace, but the 581 registration is renewed here. The registrant organization has moved 582 from Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preussischer Kulturbesitz to The 583 International ISBN Agency, London, U.K. Moreover, the description of 584 the NSS and resolution details have been amended. 586 5.1. URN Namespace ID Registration for the International Standard Book 587 Number (ISBN) 589 This registration describes how International Standard Book Numbers 590 (ISBN) can be supported within the URN framework. 592 [ RFC Editor: please replace "XXXX" in all instances of "RFC XXXX" 593 below by the RFC number assigned to this document. ] 594 Namespace ID: ISBN 596 This Namespace ID has already been assigned to the International 597 Standard Book Number in January 2001 when the namespace was 598 initially registered. 600 Registration Information: 602 Version: 2 603 Date: 2011-09-08 605 Declared registrant of the namespace: 607 Registering Organization: The International ISBN Agency 609 Designated Contact Person: 610 Name: Ms. Stella Griffiths 611 Affiliation: Executive Director, The International ISBN Agency 612 Email: info@isbn-international.org 613 Postal: EDItEUR, 39-41 North Road, London, N7 9DP, U.K. 614 Web URL: 616 Declaration of syntactic structure of NSS part: 618 The namspace-specific string of 'ISBN' URNs is either an ISBN-13 619 (see Section 4.1.2 of RFC XXXX) or an ISBN-10 (see Section 4.1.1 620 of RFC XXXX); the former is preferred. 622 Example 1: URN:ISBN:978-0-395-36341-6 623 Example 2: URN:ISBN:951-0-18435-7 624 Example 3: URN:ISBN:951-20-6541-X 625 Example 4: URN:ISBN:951206541X 627 Relevant ancillary documentation: 629 The ISBN (International Standard Book Number) is a unique machine- 630 readable identification number, which marks any edition of a book 631 unambiguously. This number is defined in ISO Standard 2108:2005. 632 ISBNs has been in use for more than 30 years and they have 633 revolutionised the international book-trade. 170 countries and 634 territories are officially ISBN members. 636 The administration of the ISBN system is carried out on three 637 levels: 638 International agency, 639 Group agencies, 640 Publishers. 642 The International ISBN agency is located in London. The main 643 functions of the Agency are: 645 * To promote, co-ordinate and supervise the world-wide use of the 646 ISBN system. 648 * To approve the definition and structure of group agencies. 650 * To allocate group identifiers to group agencies. 652 * To advise on the establishment and functioning of group 653 agencies. 655 * To advise group agencies on the allocation of international 656 publisher identifiers. 658 * To publish the assigned group numbers and publisher prefixes in 659 up-to-date form. 661 Detailed information about ISBN usage can be found from the ISBN 662 Users' Manual. The manual is available at . A shorter 664 introduction to ISBN usage can be found from the ISBN FAQ, 665 available at . There 666 are also guidelines for the assignment of ISBNs to e-books, 667 available at . 671 Conformance with URN Syntax: 673 Legal ISBN characters are 0-9 and hyphen for ISBN-13 and 0-9, 674 hyphen, and X for ISBN-10. No percent-encoding is needed. Hyphen 675 carries no semantic content and MAY be dropped from the NSS. 677 [[ Editorial Note: Need to discuss new specification requirements 678 from the RFC 2141bis draft! ]] 680 Rules for Lexical Equivalence of NSS part: 682 ISBN numbers are usually printed with the letters 'ISBN' and a 683 single blank preceding the ISBN proper (for instance: ISBN 951- 684 746-795-8). The data preceding the ISBN MUST NOT be included in 685 the NSS. No percent encoding is needed. 687 Prior to comparing the NSS of two ISBN-based URNs for equivalence, 688 all hyphens, if present, MUST be removed and letter 'X' 689 capitalized. Prior to comparing a URN based on ISBN-10 with a URN 690 based on ISBN-13, the ISBN-10 MUST be converted to the ISBN-13 691 form. This step is necessary since the ISBN-10s may or may not be 692 already converted to the new form; libraries SHOULD keep the old 693 ISBN since it is the one printed in books published prior to 2007, 694 while publishers may convert the old identifiers originally 695 assigned in ISBN-10 form and use the equivalent ISBN-13s in 696 unchanged reprints of the books, which according to the ISBN 697 assignment rules should not receive a new ISBN. 699 Note that, according to RFC 2141bis, the prefix "URN:ISBN:" is 700 case-insensitive; generic URI parsing and comparison software 701 frequently uses lower case as the canonical (normalized) form. 703 The URNs are equivalent if the normalized forms obtained this way 704 compare equal. 706 Identifier uniqueness and persistence considerations: 708 ISBN is a unique and persistent identifier. An ISBN, once it has 709 been assigned, MUST NOT be re-used for another book or another 710 product form of the same book. A single product form 711 (manifestation) of a book MUST NOT get a new ISBN. 'ISBN' URNs 712 inherit the uniqueness and persistence properties from ISBNs. 713 Please note that the same ISBN CAN be used as in another 714 persistent identifier system, such as DOI or Handle. The 715 resulting persistent identifier SHALL NOT render the URN:ISBN non- 716 unique; however, it might provide different resolution services 717 than URN:ISBN. 719 If there are multiple manifestations of a single literary work 720 such as a novel, each one MUST receive a different ISBN. ISO has 721 developed a new standard, ISTC (International Standard Text Code, 722 ISO 21047-2009) that enables identification of textual works. See 723 for more information. In the 724 standard itself, annex E describes the relations between ISBN and 725 other publication identifiers and ISTC. 727 Process of identifier assignment: 729 Assignment of ISBNs is controlled, and 'ISBN' URNs immediately 730 inherit this property. There are three levels of control: the 731 international agency, group agencies that typically operate in the 732 national level, and finally each publisher is responsible of using 733 the ISBN system correctly. Small publishers may demand ISBN 734 numbers one at a time by contacting the ISBN group agency. Large 735 publishers receive ISBN blocks from which they allocate ISBNs to 736 the books according to the ISBN assignment rules. 738 Process for identifier resolution: 740 See Section 4.3 of RFC XXXX. 742 Validation mechanism: 744 The check digit helps to assure the correctness of an ISBN number 745 assigned for a book when it has been entered or processed. 746 Applications processing bibliographic data such as integrated 747 library systems MAY check the correctness of both ISBN-10 and 748 ISBN-13 (and make conversions between the two). If the number is 749 wrong due to, e.g., a typing error made by a publisher, a correct 750 ISBN SHOULD be assigned afterwards. Although the book will only 751 contain the wrong number, national bibliography and system used by 752 the book trade often will contain both the wrong and new, correct 753 ISBN number. 755 Scope: 757 ISBN is a global identifier system used for identification of 758 monographic publications. It is very widely used and supported by 759 the publishing industry. 761 6. Security Considerations 763 This document proposes means of encoding ISBNs within the URN 764 framework. An ISBN-based URN resolution service is depicted here 765 both for ISBN-10 and ISBN-13, but only in a fairly generic level; 766 thus questions of secure or authenticated resolution mechanisms are 767 excluded. It does not deal with means of validating the integrity or 768 authenticating the source or provenance of URNs that contain ISBNs. 769 Issues regarding intellectual property rights associated with objects 770 identified by the ISBNs are also beyond the scope of this document, 771 as are questions about rights to the databases that might be used to 772 construct resolvers. 774 7. IANA Considerations 776 IANA is asked to update the existing registration of the Formal URN 777 Namespace 'ISBN' using the template given above in Section 5.1, which 778 follows the outline specified in RFC 3406bis 779 [I-D.ietf-urnbis-rfc3406bis-urn-ns-reg]. 781 8. Acknowledgements 783 This draft version is the outcome of work started in 2008 and brought 784 to the IETF in 2010 to launch a much larger effort to revise the 785 basic URN RFCs. The aim in the IETF is to bring these RFCs in 786 alignment with the current URI Standard (STD 63, RFC 3986), ABNF, and 787 IANA guidelines. The participants of project PERSID 788 () contributed significantly to the standards 789 work. 791 Leslie Daigle has provided valuable guidance in the initial draft 792 stage of this memo. 794 Your name could go here ... 796 9. References 798 9.1. Normative References 800 [I-D.ietf-urnbis-rfc2141bis-urn] 801 Hoenes, A., "Uniform Resource Name (URN) Syntax", 802 draft-ietf-urnbis-rfc2141bis-urn-00 (work in progress), 803 November 2010. 805 [I-D.ietf-urnbis-rfc3406bis-urn-ns-reg] 806 Hoenes, A., "Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace 807 Definition Mechanisms", 808 draft-ietf-urnbis-rfc3406bis-urn-ns-reg-00 (work in 809 progress), December 2010. 811 [ISO1] ISO, "Information and documentation - The International 812 Standard Book Number (ISBN)", ISO 2108-1992, 1992. 814 [ISO2] ISO, "Information and documentation - The International 815 Standard Book Number (ISBN)", ISO 2108-2005, 2005. 817 [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate 818 Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. 820 9.2. Informative References 822 [DOIHOME] International DOI Foundation, "The Digital Object 823 Identifier System", . 825 [IANA-URI] 826 IANA, "URI Schemes Registry", 827 . 829 [IANA-URN] 830 IANA, "URN Namespace Registry", 831 . 833 [ISBNORG] International ISBN Agency, "", 834 . 836 [OCLC-WC] OCLC WorldCat, "WorldCat.org: The World's Largest Library 837 Catalog", . 839 [PREFIX] International ISBN Agency, "ISBN Prefix Ranges", 840 . 842 [RFC2141] Moats, R., "URN Syntax", RFC 2141, May 1997. 844 [RFC2288] Lynch, C., Preston, C., and R. Jr, "Using Existing 845 Bibliographic Identifiers as Uniform Resource Names", 846 RFC 2288, February 1998. 848 [RFC2611] Daigle, L., van Gulik, D., Iannella, R., and P. Faltstrom, 849 "URN Namespace Definition Mechanisms", BCP 33, RFC 2611, 850 June 1999. 852 [RFC3044] Rozenfeld, S., "Using The ISSN (International Serial 853 Standard Number) as URN (Uniform Resource Names) within an 854 ISSN-URN Namespace", RFC 3044, January 2001. 856 [RFC3187] Hakala, J. and H. Walravens, "Using International Standard 857 Book Numbers as Uniform Resource Names", RFC 3187, 858 October 2001. 860 [RFC3406] Daigle, L., van Gulik, D., Iannella, R., and P. Faltstrom, 861 "Uniform Resource Names (URN) Namespace Definition 862 Mechanisms", BCP 66, RFC 3406, October 2002. 864 [RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform 865 Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66, 866 RFC 3986, January 2005. 868 Appendix A. Draft Change Log 870 [[ RFC-Editor: Whole section to be deleted before RFC publication. ]] 872 A.1. draft-hakala-rfc3187bis-isbn-urn-00 to draft-ietf-urnbis-*-00 874 - formal updates for a WG draft; 875 - RFC 2288 now obsoleted and made Historic; 876 - added references to rfc2141bis and rfc3406bis; 877 - Sect.3 reorganized and amended: Namespace/Community Considerations; 878 - registration template adapted to rfc3406bis [-00]; 879 - numerous editorial fixes and improvements. 881 A.2. draft-ietf-urnbis-rfc3187bis-isbn-urn-00 to -01 883 - discussion on persistence altered, based on list discussion; 884 - changes and amendments to discussion of URN resolution services; 885 - discussion of fragment part usage added; 886 - broken link to ISBN manual fixed based on feedback from [ISBNORG]; 887 - various editorial fixes and enhancements. 889 Authors' Addresses 891 Maarit Huttunen 892 The National Library of Finland 893 P.O. Box 26 894 Helsinki, Helsinki University FIN-00014 895 Finland 897 EMail: maarit.huttunen@helsinki.fi 899 Juha Hakala 900 The National Library of Finland 901 P.O. Box 15 902 Helsinki, Helsinki University FIN-00014 903 Finland 905 EMail: juha.hakala@helsinki.fi 907 Alfred Hoenes (editor) 908 TR-Sys 909 Gerlinger Str. 12 910 Ditzingen D-71254 911 Germany 913 EMail: ah@TR-Sys.de