The National Science Library in New Delhi serves as India's National Centre for ISSN, having been designated in 1986 to assign ISSNs to serial publications published in India. Over 28 years it has assigned ISSNs to over 18,000 serials. It maintains records of ISSNs in online and print formats and regularly updates assigned ISSN details on its website. The Centre works to avoid duplication and provide public access to ISSN records according to International ISSN Network policies and guidelines.

1. ISSN INDIA
National Science Library, CSIR-NISCAIR
New Delhi

2. Indian National Centre for ISSN
Overview
● National Institute of Science Communication and information
Resources (Erstwhile INSDOC) has been designated as the Centre for
assigning ISSN to serial publications published in India since 1986.
● The ISSN National Centre based in New Delhi and the National Science
Library serves as the National Centre For ISSN.
● National Science Library (NSL) has more than 2,51,000 printed
collection of S&T documents which includes monographs, bound
volumes of journals, reports, thesis/dissertations, standards and patents
etc.
● NSL objective to be a national repository for reports of scientific work of
nation.

3. History of ISSN in India
● The first Print ISSN assigned by Indian Centre was in January,1986 to the
serial Pratibuddha ISSN 0970-0005.
● From the year of 1986-2008, assigned ISSN records were transmitted to
the International Centre on typed worksheets along with cover page and
content page of the serials.
● From the year of 1986 -2012, ISSN and serials detail were recorded in
bound ledgers.
● From the year of 2009 Indian ISSN Centre started using Virtua client for
transmission of ISSN records to the International Centre.
● In the year 2013, all ISSN ledger records were successfully automated and
displayed on National Science Library website to avoid duplication of
records and public access.

4. First ISSN Ledger from 1986

5. Indian Centre regularly updates assigned ISSN details on National Science
Library website http://nsl.niscair.res.in/

6. ISSN Indian Centre revitalised online submission of application from February,
2015 by which the applicant can view their assignment status.

7. Over the past 28 years, 18774 ISSN assigned to serials published in India

9. ● Indian Centre regularly updates ISSN guidelines according to International
Centre ISSN assignment policy.
● 1243 open access journals from India found place in ROAD Directory from
January 2014.

10. “Dr. Peter Burnhill in National
Science Library, CSIR-NISCAIR, India”
National Science Library organized a programme “ISSN & RNI: a tale of two numbers” on
16th March, 2015.
Ther RNI registration number assigned by the Registrar of Newspapers in India is another
number that is important for print periodicals published in India. National Centre planning to
make it mandatory for the publishers to get the title verification done from RNI before applying
for ISSN.
Dr. Peter Burnhill, Director, EDINA, Edinburgh University who has been associated with the
ISSN International Centre, Paris also visited National Science Library and give a presentation
on “Using a dumb identifier to do smart things”.

11. Shobhna Vij
Sr. Technical Officer and
ISSN In-charge
G. Mahesh
(Principal Scientist)
Head of the National Science Library and
Indian ISSN Centre

12. Thank You