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ISSN and Bibliographic Data

Provision of the Bibliographic Data for Publications in Tangible Formats (formats such as print, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, etc.) Published in Japan with ISSN

Registered ISSN for publications in tangible formats are made available through the data in NDL Search.

Please note that:

Bibliographic data of publications in tangible formats which are not categorized as serials (such as monographic series) in the NDL neither contain ISSN in the data nor can publications which do not display their ISSN (by mistake or in the case of back issues which had already been published before the application) be searched for by the ISSN.

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Provision of the Bibliographic Data of Online Resources Published in Japan with ISSN

ISSN assigned for online resources published in Japan, which have been registered and maintained by the Japanese National Centre for ISSN, are available in the bibliographic records contained in NDL Search.

Search and download via NDL Search

NDL Search contains the bibliographic data of online resources with ISSN published in Japan. They can be searched by putting the value "ISSN" into the "Call number" field. You can refine your search by filling in the fields for title, publisher, ISSN, etc.

* When you download the bibliographic data, select the MARC tags format.

* The maximum data that can be downloaded is 5,000. Search results should be refined in advance so that they can be less than 5,000.

List of online journals, etc. published in Japan with ISSN

A list of online journals, etc. published in Japan with ISSN is also provided in CSV format.

Bibliographic records of online journals, etc. published in Japan are included in the list when they apply for an ISSN and the records are sent to the ISSN International Centre. Updated twice a year.

There are no restrictions on the use of the list of online journals, etc. published in Japan with ISSN. The NDL assumes no responsibility or liability for any actions taken as a result of using the list of online journals, etc. published in Japan with ISSN.

WARP (Web Archiving Project) and National Diet Library Digital Collections (Online publications) provide online journals collected by the National Diet Library based on the National Diet Library Law or permission from the publishers. The collection can be searched by ISSN, etc.

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Outline of the ISSN Portal

The ISSN International Centre holds all the bibliographic data of ISSN in the world in the ISSN International Register (the official registration database for ISSN) and provides them on the web via the ISSN Portal (https://portal.issn.org/) (opens in another window). As of the end of 2022, 2,287,852 ISSN are contained in the ISSN Portal.

After January 2018, essential fields of all the records for ISSN registered as standard numbers can be searched and utilized free of charge.

Bibliographic data with ISSN is Romanized before registration in the ISSN International Centre.

As of January 2021, we have started to register data containing kanji and kana, but please understand that when searching from the ISSN Portal using keywords with kanji or kana will display only search results that contain kanji or kana.

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Outline of ROAD

ROAD (Directory of Open Access scholarly Resources) (https://road.issn.org/) (opens in another window) is a service provided by the ISSN International Centre with support from UNESCO. In July 2018, ROAD was integrated into the ISSN Portal.

ROAD provides free access to a subset of ISSN bibliographic records for scholarly resources in open access (online journals, conference proceedings, academic repositories, etc.) which have been registered in the ISSN Portal.

The main purposes of ROAD are as follows:

  • To provide a single access point to different types of online scholarly resources published worldwide and freely available.
  • To provide information about the quality and prominence of OA resources, indicating by which services they are covered.
  • To give an overview of the Open Access scholarly production worldwide (for statistics purposes for instance).
  • To demonstrate new ways of using the ISSN for compiling information from various sources.

In March 2015, the Japanese National Centre for ISSN started to send bibliographic data to ROAD. Online journals published in Japan with ISSN which meet all the following requirements are registered:

  • FREE content permitting any users to read, download, copy, print or link it
  • The entirety of their resources are accessible
  • Peer-reviewed academic journal

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Frequently Asked Questions

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Contact Us

Japanese National Centre for ISSN
Serials and Non-book Materials Division, Acquisitions and Bibliography
Department, National Diet Library
Fax: +81-3-3581-1330
E-mail: issnjpnat n d l dot g o dot j p

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