Obtaining an ISBN, ISSN or DOI identifer for your published work
Library Y2021Guide
How University of Bath authors can get a unique ISBN, ISSN or DOI number to make your research output easier to search for and identify when publishing.
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ISBN

As a member of the University, you may wish to apply for an ISBN (International Standard Book Number) if you have written a book or produced a âserial monographâ such as a set of conference proceedings. Â ISBNs usually have 13 digits and start with 978-xxxxx-xxxxx. Â The University of Bath Library can allocate ISBNs for certain items.

To obtain an ISBN,Â contact the Bibliographic Services Librarians via email library@bath.ac.ukÂ with the following information:

Publication title

Date

Author/editor

Department

Contact

Once allocated, your ISBN can be applied to your book and it will also be added to the Neilson book database to be officially registered.

ISSNÂ

If you are starting a journal series, you can apply for an ISSN (International Standard Serial Number)Â from the British Library (the UK representative of the ISSN Centre). Â You need to apply for an ISSN based on the country in which the journal is published.

Application for an ISSN is via a form that collects various pieces of data to show that the journal title is regularly produced and likely to continue. Â There is no charge for an ISSN and it generally takes two weeks to be allocated. Â More information is available from the ISSN UK Centre.

An ISSN usually has eight digits with a hyphen in the middle like this: 1234-5678.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

When you have an article published with a well-known journal, the publisher will generally allocate a DOI (Digital Object Identifier (DOI) at the point of acceptance of your paper.Â

A DOI usually looks like this: 10.1025/klj123456.

If your journal does not allocate DOIs:

There are various repositories that allow you to deposit the full text of your paper and will then allocate a DOI (or similar permanent identifier).

Some repositories will allocate a DOI for other output types such as data as follows:

At the University of Bath, we can allocate a DOI for your research data. More information is available from the Research Data Management team.

Data repositories such as Dryad and Figshare will also assign DOIs for data sets.

For further information on identifiers

To request an ISBN, contact the Library by email library@bath.ac.uk