On 1st September 2021, the ISNI International Agency (ISNI-IA) was delighted to welcome a total of 189 individuals (belonging to a total of 110 organisations, from 30 countries) to the first-ever ISNI Information Day.

This event marked the tenth anniversary of the International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) – an ISO standard which has been embraced by multiple professional communities over the past decade, and is now one of the most trusted sources of identification and disambiguation for public identities (including individuals and organisations) worldwide.

The milestone celebration provided a whistle-stop overview of how far the ISNI standard has come over the past decade, thanks to the various sectors that have adopted it; and the event boasted a full and varied programme and speakers list, which cumulatively spanned the ISNI standard’s origins and history, as well as its progress and adoption within the library, music, publishing and rights management sectors.

Opening speaker and ISNI-IA Chairperson Michael Healy reflected:

“I am delighted that ISNI’s first Information Day attracted such a large audience. There is huge interest in what the ISNI community is doing and in its efforts to solve the pressing challenges that the management of public identities poses in so many sectors. I’m so grateful to all the presenters for their contributions to what was a very successful event.” 

Presenters reviewed some of ISNI’s achievements over the past decade – including, most notably, its ever-growing, global adoption – and ISNI-IA tipped its metaphorical hat towards the future, noting the many possibilities for applying ISNIs in other sectors which are beginning to realise the potential for the standard.

Tim Devenport, the Executive Director of ISNI-IA said:

“We have been encouraged and overwhelmed by the response to this event which demonstrates the reach of the ISNI standard to date and its potential for application in other settings. We would like to extend our thanks to everyone that attended and all those who may watch the event online in the coming weeks.”

He added: “We are particularly grateful for the help and support of the following speakers (all of whom are associated with ISNI Member organizations or Registration Agencies):

• Michael Healy, Executive Director, International Relations, Copyright Clearance Center & Chairperson of the ISNI International Agency Board
• Gebre Waddell, Chief Executive Officer, Sound Credit
• Michelle Durocher, Head of Metadata Management, Harvard Library at Harvard University & the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC)
• Graham Bell, Executive Director, EDItEUR
• Yasmina Jraissati, RAYA Agency for Arabic Literature & Publishing Manager at Storytel MENA
• Iris Berbain, Deputy Head of Authority Control & Head of the BnF ISNI Quality Team, Bibliothèque nationale de France 
• Emma Rogoz, Identifier Development & Operations Manager, British Library

Those who were unable to attend the event are encouraged to watch it via ISNI-IA’s new YouTube channel, here. You can also catch up on the salient points from each presentation on Twitter via the event’s dedicated hashtag, #ISNI2021.

About the ISNI International Agency: 

ISNI-IA is the Registration Authority for the International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) and is charged by ISO with governing, promulgating and maintaining the use of ISNIs worldwide.

ISNIs help to identify the millions of contributors to creative works and those active in their distribution, including researchers, inventors, writers, artists, visual creators, performers, producers, publishers, aggregators, and more. ISNIs can also act as linking or bridge identifiers in cases where several identification schemas exist, thus enabling cross-walks and correlation between the different schemas.

ISNI-IA’s mission is to assign to the public name(s) or persona(s) of individuals a persistent unique identifying number in order to resolve the problem of name ambiguity in search and discovery; and to diffuse each assigned ISNI across all repertoires in the global supply chain so that every published work can be unambiguously attributed to its creator(s) wherever that work is described.

Find out more at: https://isni.org/