Free Articulator has its ISSN
May 6, 2008
It’s been a long time coming, but the Free Articulator has finally achieved a new level of professional status and obtained its ISSN. You can see our new ISSN in the Header near the Comments and RSS subscription button in the top right of the homepage.
A small, apparently insignificant, number that is loaded with a great deal more meaning and usefulness than one may at first realize.
So what’s an ISSN?
Wikipedia has an excellent article on this which you can read here. It’s essentially an 8-digit number that provides a unique identifier. It also means that a publication is archived.
What use is it?
Well, the fact that it is archived puts a publication into an historical context meaning that every article published is archived in the national library of the country in which the publication is registered. Articles published are placed into a searchable database. Nice way to backup the hard work that goes into a publication and preserve it for posterity.
These databases are used by universities, institutions, media and scholars for education and research of various types.
Why have one?
A publication with an ISSN achieves another level of professionalism, responsibility, credibility and reputation. More importantly, for Allforart and the Free Articulator, this means we are now helping establish Featured Artists, Movers & Shakers, New Product Releases, and artworks as part of the historical record in national, and potentially international, archives.
In the electronic age this means that what is published in the Free Articulator, having been archived by a national library is now available through research libraries that are interconnected around the world. This increases the potential for legitimate exposure.
What about copyright?
Authors who may be concerned about their intellectual property being archived by a national library should not be concerned. Organizations that utilize such resources are bound by intellectual property laws, conventions and treaties in their use of such materials and this does not affect any author’s copyright in material ways. ISSN registration and publication filing are bound by these laws and treaties too.
Archiving means that publication in the Free Articulator now has the potential to reach a much larger audience. This includes crossing the digital divide for those who use library and other public computers to access the internet.
For more information about ISSN do read the manual provided by the international organization based in France.
There are more actions Allforart and the Free Articulator will be taking in the near (and not-so-near) future to expand our reach and support of the remarkable talents of creative individuals and industry events that have come to our attention around the world. We’ll let you know as they occur.
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