Bowker Launches New International ISNI Registration Service

ISNIs now available through Bowker’s assignment portal: ISNI.Bowker.com

CHATHAM, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bowker today announced the launch of an International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) registration service via its new platform, ISNI.Bowker.com. The portal enables individuals and organizations across the book industry and broader creative sectors worldwide to obtain ISNIs quickly and efficiently.

“We now offer ISNI assignment as part of our services to make it as simple and seamless as possible for our customers to obtain this unique global identifier,” said Beat Barblan, Bowker General Manager. “ISNIs ensure that creators and organizations are accurately recognized, credited, and connected across platforms.”

With more than 16 million ISNIs assigned globally, ISNI is an ISO standard that uniquely identifies contributors to creative works and those actively involved in their distribution, including researchers, authors, artists, performers, producers, and publishers. ISNIs resolve name ambiguity, ensure accurate attribution, improve search and discovery, and enhance visibility across formats, domains, and borders.

Key Benefits of ISNI:

• Unique, Unambiguous Identification: Each ISNI distinctly identifies a public identity, consolidating name variations and ensuring consistent attribution across works and systems.
• Enhanced Discovery & Metadata Integrity: ISNIs improve metadata quality by linking contributors to their associated works, reducing duplication and enabling more accurate search, cataloging, and recommendations.
• Improved Rights, Royalties & Reporting: By enriching contributor data, ISNIs help ensure creators are properly compensated, while enabling publishers and other stakeholders to streamline reporting, and reduce manual reconciliation.
• Cross-Sector Connectivity: ISNIs serve as unique, persistent identifiers across industries — including publishing, libraries, music, copyright, research, and audiovisual — linking creators to their works wherever they are described.

“Focusing on the book industry, Bowker helps authors, publishers, and other stakeholders obtain ISNIs and realize their full benefits,” added Barblan. “ISNIs for individuals and organizations are now available at ISNI.Bowker.com.”

"We are delighted to see the launch of this new service in the United States, especially following Bowker’s return to the ISNI community in January 2025," said Tim Devenport, Executive Director of the ISNI International Agency. "This launch marks an important and much-anticipated milestone: the first ISNI Registration Agency in the U.S. dedicated to the book industry. It represents a natural next step in Bowker's growing commitment to advancing trusted identification and metadata across the publishing ecosystem."

For more information:

• The Benefits of ISNI for Publishers
• The Benefits of ISNI for Authors & Book Industry Contributors
• Bowker Rejoins ISNI as a Registration Agency

About Bowker

For more than 150 years, Bowker has provided products and services that enhance book discovery, evaluation, and engagement. The company connects publishers, authors, and booksellers with readers through solutions such as ISBNs, barcodes, editorial services, copyright support, and marketing tools.

About the International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI):

ISNI is the global standard number for identifying 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. As an ISO standard (ISO 27729), it is part of a family of international standard identifiers that also includes identifiers of works, recordings, products, and rights holders in all repertoires, e.g. DOI, ISAN, ISBN, ISRC, ISSN, and ISWC.

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.

Find out more at: isni.org.

About the ISNI International Agency (ISNI-IA):

The 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.

ISNI’s mission is to assign to the public name(s) or persona(s) of individuals — as well as organizations involved in the production and/or distribution of creative works — persistent unique identifying numbers 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.