5. Non-participating publishers

If by choice or for any other reason, a publisher does not accept responsibility for assigning ISMNs to his publications, two alternatives are open to the national agency:

1. The local agency can allocate a block of numbers for miscellaneous publishers and number all titles within that block irrespective of the publisher. In such a case the resulting ISMN will not identify a specific publisher.

It is strongly recommended that this procedure be reserved for publishers who only publish an occasional title and who are never likely to be in a position to assume the responsibility for numbering themselves.

2. The local agency, responsible for assigning a publisher identifier, may also assume responsibility for the assignment of the item identifiers (associated with a specific publisher identifier) to publications of this particular publisher. The agency will have to inform the publisher before publication of the number assigned.

In such a case, if the publisher agrees to do so, the ISMN can be printed in the book. It is expected that such a publisher will eventually assume full responsibility for assigning his own ISMNs.