The ISSN System (International Standard Serial Numbering) ensures worldwide registration of serial publications (newspapers, journals, editions of professional and scientific books, etc.), collects information which are necessary for their identification and bibliographical control, makes these files available and provides other services. The Czech ISSN National Centre (CNS ISSN), which resides in the State Technical Library in Prague, is the executive body of this system in CR. The basic data element is the international standard serial number which uniquely defines the title of the publication.

The records are stored in the database which contained data on approximately 6,000 Czech serial publications in December, 2001. By means of this database, it is possible to ascertain all the important data on the given serial publication - for example, title, ISSN, publishing house, place of publishing, the year when publishing started or ended, language, preceding and subsequent titles, supplements, etc. The database is specifically designed for libraries, publishing and information-providing institutions, reference service organizations, etc., which need to obtain clear information on Czech serial publications during the course of their work.

ISSN Compact on CD-ROM which contains a worldwide database of ISSN's with 1,000,000 records is also available in STL. The software enables the use of 24 'search-for-facts' keys and 18 keys for browsing through the database. The user is provided with detailed help in English or in French.

More detailed information on the ISSN System is available on the home site of the ISSN International Centre.

Contact:

State Technical Libray
Czech ISSN National Centre
Marianske nam. 5
P. O. Box 206
110 01 Praha 1
tel.: /+420 2/ 21 663 440
fax: /+420 2/ 2222 1340
e-mail: issn@stk.cz