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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