Identifier Encoding Schemes

Dublin Core Metadata Initiative - Citation Working Group

24 October 2006

This version: <http://www.dublincore.org/groups/citation/citids.html>

Editor: Ann Apps <ann.apps@manchester.ac.uk>
MIMAS, The University of Manchester, UK

Status of this document: Completed Working Group Resource

Description: This document contains a list of identifier encoding schemes relevant to journal articles.


1. Standard Identifier Encoding Schemes

The table below lists standard identifers which may be used when capturing bibliographic citation information about resources such as journal articles and books.

It is unclear at present whether it will be necessary to register these identifers as encoding schemes with DCMI, or whether the DCMI recommendation will be to encode them within a string value according to scheme "URI". The table indicates the encoding for each identifier as a URI by example. But note that some of these identifiers have not yet been registered as URNs with the relevant bodies. These encodings are based on the draft 'Guidelines for encoding identifiers in Dublin Core metadata' [1].

IdentifierIdentifier NameStandard AgencyExample Encoding
DOIDigital Object IdentifierInternational DOI Foundationdoi:10.1060/abcdefg
ISSNInternational Standard Serials NumberISSN Internationl Centreurn:issn:0740-8188
ISBNInternational Standard Book NumberInternational ISBN Agencyurn:isbn:1-56592-149-6
SICISerial Item and Contribution IdentifierANSI/NISO Z39.56-1996 Version 2urn:sici:07408188(200010)
22:3%3C311:SEUB%3E2.0.CO;2-X

2. Other Identifier Encoding Schemes

The table below lists other significant identifiers relevant to bibliographic citation information. Because these are not standard identifiers, it will be necessary to encode them within Dublin Core records using application-specific schemes.

IdentifierIdentifier NameAgency
BICIBook Item and Contributor IdentifierNISO Committee AP
CODEN http://www.oclc.org/oclc/bib/030.htm
PIIPublisher Item IdentifierElsevier
PubMed National Library of Medicine
OpenURL NISO Committee AX
OAI Open Archives Initiative

3. References

[1] Powell, A. (2002) Guidelines for encoding identifiers in Dublin Core metadata.