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ISSN Bulgaria

Member since 1991

1. History

Bulgarian National ISSN Centre was established in its current form in 1991, initially as part of the Bibliography of Periodicals Department and since 2013, after merging with the ISBN, ISSN and ISIL agencies, as an independent unit within the structure of the National Bibliographic Agency in the National Library “St. St. Cyril and Methodius” in Sofia, Bulgaria. However, Bulgarian periodicals were included in the ISSN system long before that - since 1972 through Regional ISSN Centre MARSI (МАРСИ), established within the International Centre for Scientific and Technical Information (МЦНТИ) in Moscow, in which apart from Bulgaria other members included Hungary, East Germany, Cuba, Poland, Vietnam, Mongolia, Czechoslovakia and the USSR. Since 1981 ISSN assignment of Bulgarian periodicals began to be performed directly by the established National ISDS Centre. In 1990, Bulgaria terminated its participation in the МАРСИ service and officially acceded the International ISSN Centre Statutes. Currently the activity is carried out by one full-time employee.

2. Main functions

• Assignment of ISSN to continuing resources published by Bulgarian publishers, regardless of their medium, place of printing and dissemination and language of publication and control on displaying of ISSN in publications;

• Maintenance of local database of ISSN assignments;

• Registration of Bulgarian continuing resources in the international ISSN Register database using at first Virtua Cataloguing Client since 2009 after a training session in Paris, now ISSN+;

• Liaising with the International ISSN Centre, national ISSN centers of other countries and related organizations;

• Consulting publishers of continuing resources and providing promotion, education and training in the use of ISSN.

3. Workflow statistics

• Total number of ISSNs so far – 10 011, ca. 150 new and 200-300 modified per year;

• Ca. 95% of country’s serials are ISSN assigned;

• 30-45% are prepublication assignments per year;

• 87% serials on physical carrier, 13% e-serials;

• Majority of e-serials (ca. 60-70%) are open access scholarly resources.