ISNI

I heard about the The International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) at O'Reilly TOC and figured I'd look into it later. On the one hand as one who dabbles with code and system design, any standard that gives a code to a name is great. And the more open, the more people that sign up, so the more likely it is to be a practical standard (as opposed to a academic standard, which is theoretically great but no one uses it). However, the immediate thing that strikes me about it is 16 digits (really 15 with a check digit). Really once you hit more than 7 (+ or - 2) then no one can be assumed to memorize it, so just go way high with the number so that it'll be replaced as a standard before you run out. Give it 32 digits because no one is memorizing 16 or 32 and really cut and paste is going to be the method of transmission, not memorization in human brains.

Still that's a small point and probably not an issue for ISNI. What they aim to do is give a numeric code "to the Public Identities of Parties that participate in the creation, production, management or distribution of cultural goods in the digital environment." Which like I said, if its adopted it is great.

Another numbering agency that got into conversation was ISTC which makes numbering for the works themselves. Again adoption is key, but if you're putting out documents, why not register with everything and just list a bunch of different identifying numbers?