If you need to use the Inter-Library Loan (ILL) service to request a copy of a journal article that is not available from our print or online resources, the request form will ask you to enter the ISSN for the Journal Title the article was published in. This FAQ explains what an ISSN is and how to locate it.
What is an ISSN and how will I recognise it?
- An ISSN is an 8-digit code used to identify a specific publication and is unique to that title. [Books have their own version of this code, in the form of a 10/13 digit ISBN.]
- ISSNs are formatted like this: 1234-5678 or 1234-567X.
- ISSNs appear on 'periodicals'. Periodicals are items that are published "periodically" or in other words, something that has a regular publishing schedule. The timing varies widely depending on the source type, for example:
- Newspapers are often published daily
- Journals and magazines are often published weekly, monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly
- An annual directory would only be published once a year, every year
How do I find the ISSN?
- The easiest way is to not have to find it in the first place! If you already have the DOI or PMID number for the article, simply paste that number into the relevant line on the ILL request form and click the 'Auto fill' button. In most cases, the system will automatically recognise the item and fill in the majority of the ILL form fields for you. If using a DOI, remember to remove any preceding text such as "https://doi.org" that may appear on the article information.
- If you don't have either of those numbers, try looking the article up on the LibrarySearch catalogue. As the article won't be in our full text collections, you will need to enter the article TITLE into the search box, run the search and then when the results page appears use the toggle on the left to 'Include items not in Library stock':
If a record for the item exists in the wider system, you should see a result. Open the record and scroll down past all the item details to the section called 'Identifier'. This will contain the ISSN.
- The final option is to locate the Publishers web page for the Journal the article is in. Most academic Journal publishers will have a dedicated section containing details about the Journal - these usually contain the ISSN.
If you need help to find an ISSN, please contact the Library and we will do our best to advise.
Can I see an example?
Yes of course. This is an article the Library does not have in full text: Taylor, T.G., Stickney, R.E., French, W.J., Jollis, J.G., Kontos, M.C., Niemann, J.T., Sanko, S.G., Eckstein, M.K. and Bosson, N. (2022) 'Prehospital Predictors of Atypical STEMI Symptoms', Prehospital Emergency Care, 26(6), pp.756-763.
Following the steps shown above:
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The DOI number for this article is: 10.1080/10903127.2021.1987597. It is displayed at the top of the article information on the Publishers web page:
A PMID is a string of 8 digits assigned by PubMed to the articles in its collection. If you've found the article on PubMed, the number should be displayed at the top of the article information:
2. The Library catalogue record for the article shows the ISSN of the Journal Prehospital Emergency Care is: 1090-3127.
3. If you use google to search for the Journal Prehospital Emergency Care, you should see that the Publisher is Taylor & Francis. Their web page for the Journal title is here: https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/ipec20 . The section labelled 'About this journal' and then 'Journal information' lists the ISSN as 1090-3127:
