International Standard Text Code

Purpose

By including one or more ISTC numbers as an attribute of a bibliographic record (e.g., an ISBN record), the aggregation, collocation, filtering, etc. of publication records can be achieved automatically based on the content of the relevant publications. This solves the problem of identifying the relevant content when it is published under different titles, or where different content is published under the same title. The ISTC enables many improvements in efficiency, such as enabling retail websites to accurately re-use reviews and subject classifications applied to every publication of one work.

Another application involves using ISTCs to identify distinct but related works. E.g., the bibliographic records for a number of derivations, such as translations of the same work, can include the ISTC for that original work and thus be identified, even though the records are for publications of distinct works with separate titles.

Implementation

A single database was used to hold all ISTC records. Anybody wishing to register a textual work, e.g., an author, agent or publisher, submitted a request to an ISTC registration agency with the necessary metadata. This enabled each registration request to be checked for global uniqueness. Unregistered works (those with unique metadata), a new ISTC number is returned, otherwise the existing ISTC number is returned. There is no concept of ownership of an ISTC number; the same number should be used by anyone wherever a work needs to be identified.

Format

ISTC numbers are hexadecimal, so may be formed from numbers 0-9 and letters A-F. They are made up of four parts:

1. registry agency element - denotes which agency the work was registered through;
2. registration year element - denotes what year the work was registered in;
3. work element - 8 digit hexadecimal number, unique within year/agency;
4. check digit - calculated using a MOD 16-3 algorithm defined by ISO 7064.

Example: ISTC A02-2009-000004BE-A

User manual

The ISTC User Manual is the official guide to the use of ISTCs; it is available for download free of charge from the International ISTC Agency's website.

References

References

1. Owen, Lynette. (2024). "Selling Rights". Taylor & Francis.
2. "ISTC - International Standard Text Code".
3. '''The following information has not been substantially edited but remains as an archive of the standard and its implementation.'''
4. '''NOTE: The search functionality is no longer functioning on the ISTC website.'''