Serial Item and Contribution Identifier

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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. 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. 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.

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:

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

URN

To use in a URN, the SICI is percent-encoded and prefixed. For example, to create a URN for a specific article “From text to hypertext by indexing” in the journal 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 <cite> 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:

<blockquote cite="urn:sici:1046-8188(199501)13:1%3C69:FTTHBI%3E2.0.TX;2-4">
<p>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.</p>
</blockquote>

An internet draft proposal to officially register the SICI namespace for URNs with IANA was made in 2002, but is currently dormant.

DOI

SICI codes can be used as the item ID in a DOI identifier. 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

External links

• ANSI/NISO 239.5611996 (Version 2) — Serial Item and Contribution Identifier (SICI)
• SICI and BICI: Identifiers for Serials and Books — PowerPoint document contains examples
• Identifiers and Their Role In Networked Information Applications