Ringgold has announced that over 400,000 ISNI numbers for organisations are now available in the Identify Database, representing 99 percent coverage.
Ringgold became the first ISNI Registration Agency for institutions in May 2012 and has participated in the standardization of institutional identifiers since 2005. Ringgold has been working with ISNI over the last three years to improve and standardize the assignment of ISNI numbers for organisations, which have different characteristics than individuals. Ringgold is now able to release ISNIs to all Identify customers and to the general public.
The International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) is an ISO standard (ISO 27729) that identifies public identities of individuals and organizations. The ISNI number is not intended to provide direct access to comprehensive information about a 'Public Identity' - instead, it is designed to act as a 'bridge identifier' to link systems where comprehensive information is held, such as Ringgold's Identify Database.
The ISNI number is an open identifier in that it may be freely shared with any other person or party without restriction. In this way, ISNI provides a 'bridge' between any public or proprietary dataset where the ISNI number has been incorporated.
ISNI numbers have been included in Ringgold's Identify Database at no additional charge to customers. As new records are added to Identify, new ISNI numbers from the ISNI Assignment Agency will be attained automatically.
Ringgold provides a free lookup service for ISNI numbers at: ido.ringgold.com. To search for your Organization and its assigned ISNI number, simply login (registration is free) and use the simple search tool. If your organisation is not listed, a new ISNI will be supplied upon request for a small fee.
