The
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has released new International Standard that provides a system for assigning a unique international identification code to objects for use on digital networks.
ISO 26324:2012,
Information and documentation - Digital object identifier system, is an efficient means of identifying an entity over the Internet, used primarily for sharing with an interested user community or managing as intellectual property. ISO 26324:2012 was developed by ISO technical committee ISO Technical Committee (TC) 46,
Information and documentation, subcommittee (SC) 9,
Identification and description. The
American National Standards Institute (ANSI) holds the Secretariat for ISO TC 46 SC9, with the
National Information Standards Organization (NISO) serving as Secretary. NISO has also been designated by ANSI as the U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG) Administrator for TC 46. A digital object identifier (DOI) is a unique name or character string identifying an entity - physical, digital, or abstract - on digital networks. It provides information about that object, including where the object can be found on the Internet. Applications of the DOI system include managing information and documentation location and access; managing metadata; facilitating electronic transactions; persistent unique identification of any form of any data; and commercial and non-commercial transactions. ISO 26324:2012 gives the syntax, description, and resolution functional components of the digital object identifier system. It also gives the general principles for the creation, registration, and administration of DOI names. The standard is expected to benefit publishers, information managers, multimedia distributors, archive and cultural heritage communities, and the Internet technology industry.
ISO 26324:2012 is available for download on the ANSI Webstore. The DOI system was initiated in 1998 by the
International DOI Foundation, a non-profit member-based organization initiated by several publishing organizations. The International DOI Foundation is the Registration Authority for ISO 26324. To date, 60 million DOI names have been assigned through a federation of Registration Agencies around the world.
