What is ISO 690 about?
ISO 690 describes a set of principles, guidelines, and requirements for the preparation of bibliographic references and citations in work that are not themselves primarily bibliographical. ISO 690 provides a system for citing information resources that render deterministic output, such that a citation generated by this system can be uniquely mapped back to the originally defined set of source elements. This system is intended to be applicable across multiple languages. Citations generated by this system are machine-parseable. The citation system described in ISO 690 can be used as a configurable framework for building citation styles.
Note: ISO 690 does not specify a data model for machine‑readable citations, although such specification may be provided in a separate document or added to a later edition of ISO 690.
Who is ISO 690 for?
ISO 690 on citation guidelines for bibliographic references is useful for:
- Authors
- Researchers
- Webpage developers
- Content writers
Why should you use ISO 690?
Citations enable the identification and location of information resources. More importantly, citations are used to link new and derivative knowledge to existing knowledge sources, and therefore play an important role in the transmission and retainment of knowledge — a process that forms the basis for the advancement of culture and science in human civilization.
ISO 690 provides a system for citing information resources that render deterministic output. A citation generated by this system can be uniquely mapped back to the originally defined set of source elements. This system is intended to be applicable across all natural languages.
The citation system described in ISO 690 can be considered as a configurable framework for building citation styles. It is possible to adopt partial guidance of ISO 690 and apply it to any citation style, such as to citation guidelines published by scientific periodicals or universities.
Overall, ISO 690 describes a set of principles and practical guidelines for the creation of references and requirements for the citation of information resources.
What’s changed since the last update?
BS ISO 690:2021 supersedes BS ISO 690:2010. BS ISO 690:2021 includes some technical changes concerning BS ISO 690:2010. These include:
- Guidelines for citing electronic resources have been substantially extended
- Guidelines for using persistent identifiers, permalinks and web archives are included
- The document has been restructured to improve its readability
