The ISNI community is made up of several constituencies: founding members, registration agencies, general members, direct data contributors, and organizations concerned with the identification and description of information resources. Each member of the ISNI community participates in contributing information from their own area of interest and in ensuring the quality of ISNI data.
A registration agency provides the expert interface between ISNI applicants or other data subjects and the ISNI Assignment Agency. ISNI Registration Agencies are appointed by the ISNI International Agency; they curate and contribute metadata in their own areas of expertise, submit requests for new ISNI assignments and provide ISNI- related services to all users.
Membership is a flexible way to participate in and benefit from ISNI services, at an attractive price and without obligation (as is the case with Registration Agencies) to act on behalf of others. ISNI Members are also appointed by the ISNI International Agency.
Institutions and repositories from a number of different domains contribute their data to the central ISNI database and work directly with the ISNI Assignment Agency. ISNI records are enriched thanks to these contributions, which frequently disclose unprecedented cross-domain links between libraries authority files, rights management societies, researchers’ databases, the music industry, the book supply chain and more.