We are a small society (Computing in Cardiology) and have previously published under the IEEE umbrella, but their fees have become excessive so we wish to self-publish. For over a decade, we have hosted in open-source format the proceedings and our DOIs point to this public site. We also hosted on IEEE Xplore, with a brief embargo before we released the content on our own site.
This year, we wish to publish only on the open-source site but we do not have an ISBN. Do we need one to publish our proceedings? We have an ISSN registered to our society.
Thanks,
Rob
(Past-President, Computing in Cardiology)
For publishing proceedings, having an ISBN is not strictly mandatory, especially as your society already has an ISSN registered. However, obtaining an ISBN is generally recommended if the proceedings are intended to be distributed or cataloged as a standalone book or collection. It enhances recognition and accessibility, particularly in library systems and book distribution channels.
Since your proceedings are hosted on an open-source platform and identified through DOIs, the absence of an ISBN should not significantly affect discoverability or citation. That said, if there are plans to distribute physical or digital copies outside the open-source site, acquiring an ISBN could still be beneficial.
As a member of the community forum, I’ll await @ifarley’s input for further clarification.
ISBNs are not strictly required for conference proceedings by our metadata deposit schema. But we do strongly encourage them.
If you’re constructing the metadata submission xml yourself, you can use <noisbn reason="monograph"> in lieu of the <isbn> tag with an ISBN. Or, if you’re using our manual metadata submission tool, the Web Deposit Form, you can tick the “no-isbn” box, and leave the ISBN field empty.
Please let us know if you have any other questions.