What is ISO 8 about?
ISO 8 discusses information and documentation. ISO 8 establishes the minimum characteristics required for the presentation and identification of periodicals including not only the obvious traditional elements that print periodicals typically display (e.g. title, ISSN, publisher, date), but also the “footprints” of periodicals published on digital dynamic media that enable them to be traced along the path of their history, such as changes of URL and publisher or content provider.
ISO 8 details recommendations that ensure that the editors and publishers of periodicals to identify and present key information in a form that will help users discover, cite, and access their information over time and through any changes.
Furthermore, ISO 8 provides information about persistent identifiers, using ISSN, and citation of periodicals (especially when published online or digitized and when titles have changed). ISO 8 makes specific recommendations for the presentation and identification of aspects of retrospective digitization of periodicals.
Note: For the purposes of ISO 8, newspapers are not considered to be periodicals; therefore, specialized information relevant only to newspapers is not included.
Note: ISO 8 does not specifically address or apply to books, including series of books, nor to content that is continuously updated such as loose-leaf services, databases, online reference works, and websites.
Note: ISO 8 focuses only on elements of periodicals — printed, born-digital or retrospectively digitized — that relate to the presentation of title and supporting descriptive information, as well as practices related to title identification and content access over time.
Note: ISO 8 is not concerned with the overall design of the periodical, except where that design affects the presentation of the title and has unintended consequences for resource discovery and access to earlier content. Neither is it concerned with the technical specifications for print, born-digital or digitized periodicals.
Who is ISO 8 for?
ISO 8 on presentation and identification of periodicals is useful for:
- Publishers
- Content providers
- Authors
- Librarians
Why should you use ISO 8?
Periodicals, whatever their medium, play a critical role in the information society, and more specifically in the global information infrastructure. Citations to articles in scholarly journals, whether in print or in electronic journals, form the basis for much scholarly research. Popular trade magazines, as well as newsletters, are used by authors, researchers, and students of all ages. ISO 8 provides standardized principles and procedures which help in reliable identification and display of key information during the search, discovery, and use of the wide range of today’s periodicals.
