ISNI Registry Agency

Location
Sede Recoletos
Email
isni@bne.es

ISNI is the globally recognised standard number certified by ISO for identifying individual and corporate authors who create and distribute intellectual works of any kind, including researchers, inventors, writers, artists, visual creators, interpreters, producers, editors, etc. It forms part of the family of international standard identifiers, which include identifiers for creative works, recordings, products and content titles in all types of indices, such as: DOI, ISAN, ISBN, ISRC, ISSN, ISTC e ISWC.

The mission of the ISNI International Authority is to assign a unique and permanent identifying number to the public name(s) of researchers, inventors, etc. in order to resolve any ambiguities when searching names, as well as disseminate each assigned ISNI in all indices worldwide so that every published work can be unequivocally attributed to its creator, wherever the work is represented.

Request an ISNI

How do I obtain an ISNI?

By writing to the address isni@bne.es

Who can request an ISNI at the BNE?

Biblioteca Nacional de España processes requests for ISNI numbers for authors or entities that meet at least one of these two conditions:

  • Authors or entities in Spain or working in Spain
  • Authors or entities that are in the BNE catalogue.

What is required to obtain an ISNI?

Public identities are identified by the following metadata elements:

  • Name of the public identity.
  • Date and place of birth and/or death (or registration and dissolution for legal entities).
  • Categories and functions according to the definition established by the ISNI Registration Agency (RA). The categories define large activity groups: musical, audiovisual, textual, artistic works, choreography and software. And functions define the task performed in each of these categories, which can be that of an author, performer, editor, illustrator, etc.
  • Reference title of a creative work.
  • Name of a related person and/or institution (university, publisher, etc.).
  • A URI (or URL) that provides a link for more information about the identity.