¶ I’ve just had an email back from the ISSN UK Centre, once more turning down my request for an ISSN for Clagnut. Their reason being:
Our guidelines state that an online service which is being continually and seamlessly updated would not be regarded as a serial. I am afraid we would have to say that our current assessment is that your publication would count as being continually and seamlessly updated, rather than being divided into parts or issues, although we appreciate that there are separate posts. It would therefore not be eligible for an ISSN.
They didn’t say if their guidelines were internal or from ISSN International Centre. I’d be almost tempted to concede their point, however the ISSN UK Centre goes on to say,
Generally we are not assigning ISSN to websites, including weblogs, at present.
which rather shows their true colours: no to ISSN for weblogs. Very disappointing.
Comments
1
Initially I got rejected too. I didn’t argue the merits of what a weblog was in my response though, I just stated prior examples of those that had received ISSNs. I was granted one in response. Maybe it’s worth one more shot doing the same.
2
Thanks Dave. Maybe I’ll try some prior examples on them and see what they say.
I’d like to quote some UK blogs with an ISSN, but I’ve yet to find one.
3
Rich: I was also turned down a few months ago for the same reasons.
Looks like the UK ISSN Centres don’t hand them at as easily here.
4
Well, couldn’t you generate some sort of weekly set of PDF files and argue that it’s an online journal being published weekly with early updates? :)
5
This is what I got back from ISSN Canada today:
Thank you for your application. At the moment, we are no longer assigning ISSN to weblogs, but the situation is under review. The question of whether weblogs will be able to be assigned ISSN is under discussion in the international ISSN Network. The question hinges on the scope of the ISSN but also on the very real consideration of the limited staff resources of ISSN centres worldwide.
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