What is the ISMN?

ISMN, International Standard Music Number (ISMN) is the international number that identifies notated and digital music publications.

It is used to prepare and process the notated music publications and their bibliographic data: for publishers, music businesses and libraries.

The numerical code consists in 13 digits structured in 5 elements, which variable length. It will always be preceded by the acronym ISMN. For example: 979-0-8054-7207-2

It usually appears printed on the back of the cover, although it can also be included in other parts, such as the back cover or the credits of the book, among others.

What for is the ISMN?

With the ISMN, you can identify the title of the score, their edition, their format or some others details of the publication. In addition, it speeds up the dissemination and  the marketing among the professionals in the sector, in numerical format or in barcode.

In this way, this numerical format or barcode, is commonly used by publishers, bookstores, online stores, distributors, libraries and other members, for ordering, sales records and stock controls.

Each composer is responsible for requesting the ISMN number for the title that he is going to publish. In our publisher, Musicvall Edicions Musicals, we have all the works that we manage and publish with their ISMN assigned and registered with the ISMN Agency of the Ministry of Culture.

Structure of the ISMN

979-0: composed by the EAN prefix 979 and 0 (zero), it is a digit that identifies the publications with ISMN, which is distinguishing from other standardized numbers, such as the ISBN.

8054: prefix that identifies the publisher and also it is with a variable length. Publishers with a large production are assigned shorter numbers than those who publish less, who have longer numbers. The number of the digits is related to the next element.

7207: identifies the items or publications of the available work by separately. This number is assigned by the publisher.

2: validation digit that verifies that the number is correct, being calculated mathematically.

In order to facilitate the reading, the five elements are separated by dashes. The thirteen digit number is the same as the EAN-13, the number that corresponds to the barcode.