Serial Item and Contribution Identifier

The Serial Item and Contribution Identifier (SICI) is a code (ANSI/NISO standard Z39.56) used to uniquely identify specific volumes, articles or other identifiable parts of a periodical. It is “intended primarily for use by those members of the bibliographic community involved in the use or management of serial titles and their contributions”.

Description

It is an extension of the International Standard Serial Number, which identifies an entire periodical (similar to the way an ISBN number identifies a specific book). The ISSN applies to the entire publication, however, including every volume ever printed, so this more specific identifier was developed by the Serials Industry Systems Advisory Committee (SISAC) to allow references to specific parts of a journal.

The variable-length code is compatible with other identifiers, such as DOI, PII, and URN. [ [http://www.uksg.org/serials/doi.asp The DOI (Digital Object Identifier)] ] [ [http://www.icsti.org/forum/23/index.html Document identifiers: an update on current activities] ] It is free of charge.

The SICI is a recognized international standard and is in wide use by publishers and the bibliographic community, primarily as an aid to finding existing articles or issues. [ [http://hosted.ukoln.ac.uk/biblink/wp2/d2.1/doc0006.htm#Esici Evaluation of SICI (Serial Item and Contribution Identifier)] ] JSTOR adopted SICIs in 2001 as the primary article identifier, due to their persistence and applicability to the many types of journal content found in JSTOR's archive. [ [http://news.jstor.org/jstornews/2001/06/june_2001_no_5_issue_2_jstor_a.html JSTOR and “Deep Linking”] — No. 5, Issue 2, JSTORNEWS, June 2001] [ [http://makealink.jstor.org/sici.standard.html The SICI Standard] — JSTOR]

Details

The SICI code is composed of three segments, intended to be both human-readable and easy for machines to parse automatically. The following example SICI is explained below [ [http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/bib-man/factfile/standard-numbers/sici/ What is the SICI?] — Bibliographic Management Factfile — UKOLN] :

; Item: Abstract from Lynch, Clifford A. “The Integrity of Digital Information; Mechanics and Definitional Issues.” "JASIS" 45:10 (Dec. 1994) p. 737-44; SICI: 0002-8231(199412)45:10<737:TIODIM>2.3.TX;2-M

Item segment

; 0002-8231: This is the ISSN for the periodical, in this case the "Journal of the American Society for Information Science"; (199412): The chronology part is in parentheses and identifies the date of publication. In this case, it is signified by month and year; December 1994; 45:10: The enumeration part signifies the volume and number; Vol. 45, no. 10.

Contribution segment

; <: Signifies the start of the contribution segment; 737: Location code: signifies the page number, frame number, reel number, etc. In this case, page 737; TIODIM: Title code: based on the title of the article. In this case, an initialism: “The Integrity of Digital Information; Mechanics and Definitional Issues”.; >: Signifies the end of the contribution segment

Control segment

; 2: Code Structure Identifier (CSI) for the type of SICI being constructed; 3: Derivative Part Identifier (DPI) identifies a part of the contribution, such as a table of contents or abstract; TX: Format identifier two-letter code signifying the way content is presented. In this case, TX = printed text; 2-: Standard version number; M: Check character allows a computer to detect errors in the code, similar to ISBN's check digit

Examples

; Item: Bjorner, Susanne. “Who Are These Independent Information Brokers?” "Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science", Feb-Mar. 1995, Vol. 21, no. 3, page 12 ; SICI : 0095-4403(199502/03)21:3<12:WATIIB>2.0.TX;2-J

INFO

To use as an [http://info-uri.info/registry/OAIHandler?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=reg&identifier=info:sici/ info] URI, the SICI is percent-encoded and prefixed.

; INFO: info:sici/1046-8188(199501)13:1%3C69:FTTHBI%3E2.0.TX;2-4

URN

To use in a URN, the SICI is percent-encoded and prefixed. [ [http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/rfc/rfc22xx/RFC2288.html Using Existing Bibliographic Identifiers as Uniform Resource Names] — RFC 2288] For example, to create a URN for a specific article “ [http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=195717&jmp=cit&dl=portal&dl=ACM&CFID=531779&CFTOKEN=36836322#CIT From text to hypertext by indexing] ” in the journal " [http://www.acm.org/pubs/tois/ ACM Transactions on Information Systems] ":

; SICI: 1046-8188(199501)13:1<69:FTTHBI>2.0.TX;2-4; URN: URN:SICI:1046-8188(199501)13:1%3C69:FTTHBI%3E2.0.TX;2-4

This could then be used to refer to the article inside an HTML citation (in the element), for instance, in a way that is superior to an HTTP link for documents that are not on the web or have transient URLs: [ [http://www.benmeadowcroft.com/webdev/articles/urns-and-citations/ URNs, bibliographic citations in web authoring] ]

A model is presented for converting a collection of documents to hypertext by means of indexing. The documents are assumed to be semistructured, i.e., their text is a hierarchy of parts, and some of the parts consist of natural language. The model is intended as a framework for specifying hypertextual reading capabilities for specific application areas and for developing new automated tools for the conversion of semistructured text to hypertext.

An internet draft proposal to officially register the SICI namespace for URNs with IANA was made in 2002, but is currently dormant. [ [http://web.archive.org/web/20030425054714/www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-hakala-sici-01.txt Using Serial Item and Contribution Identifiers as Uniform Resource Names] ] [ [http://refactored-networks.com/urn/urn-nid-status.html URN NID Assignment Status] ]

DOI

SICI codes can be used as the "item ID" in a DOI identifier. [ [http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue8/unique-identifiers/ Unique Identifiers in a Digital World] ] In the following example , the number 10.1002 is the DOI's "publisher ID", a slash acts as a separator, and the rest, which is publisher-specific, is the SICI code:

* 10.1002/0002-8231(199601)47:1<23:TDOMII>2.0.TX;2-2

See also

* The BICI is a draft with a very similar format and functionality, using an ISBN instead of an ISSN, used to identify components of a book.
* ISSN
* DOI
* NISO

References

External links

* [http://www.niso.org/kst/reports/standards/kfile_download?id=Z39-56.pdf&pt=RkGKiXzW643YeUaYUqZ1BFwDhIG4-24RJbcZBWg8uE4vWdpZsJDs4RjLz0t90_d5_ymGsj_IKVa86hjP37r_hJ2Adr0fB9AIwGzaIEJPZhw%3D ANSI/NISO Z39.56 - Serial Item and Contribution Identifiers (SICI)]
* [http://download.www.techstreet.com/cgi-bin/pdf/free/152629/z39-56.pdf ANSI/NISO Z39.56-1996 (Version 2)] — Serial Item and Contribution Identifier (SICI)
* [http://cendi.dtic.mil/presentations/ref_link_blixrud.ppt SICI and BICI: Identifiers for Serials and Books] — PowerPoint document contains examples
* [http://www.arl.org/newsltr/194/identifier.html Identifiers and Their Role In Networked Information Applications]