Digital services, information content, and actors producing them need to be persistently identified independently of systems used. This is possible only through identifier schemas. Cultural heritage organisations, archives, libraries and museums manage and apply several identifiers to their collections based on international standards, such as the ISBN for books and ISSN for serial publications. The ISBN and ISSN centres of Finland are based at the National Library, issuing these identifiers and providing support in their application.
In addition to publications, identifiers are also needed for actors, such as researchers, research projects, and research organisations. These include ORCID aimed at researchers, RAiD for research projects, and ROR for research organisations, as well as ISNI (International Standard Name Identifier) for creators of scientific and creative works, which can also be issued for different organisations. In Finland, CSC operates as the ORCID coordinator, and the National Library operates as the ISNI coordinator. The ROR identifier does not have a national level authority, while RAiD is currently being introduced in Europe as part of the FAIRCORE4EOSC project run by CSC.
Persistent and actionable identifiers are needed for the identification of materials and the creation of linked data. In Finland, DOI (Digital Object Identifier), Handle and URN (Uniform Resource Name) are in use. URNs are issued by the National Library to publications and other materials such as terms in the Finto ontology service. DOIs are issued by CSC to research materials and by the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV) to material published on Journal.fi and Edition.fi. The National Library is currently exploring the possibility of distributing DOIs for publications that are published on non-TSV platforms. The National Archive of Finland is in turn in the process of issuing URNs to their archival collections.
Further information:
ORCID
DOI