2026-10-29 –, LUMC03
What are the benefits of using ISNI? How can this PID serve as a bridge identifier across sectors? And how can the use of ISNIs be extended at the national level? In this session, you will hear about the outcomes of our ISNI projects (2022–2025) and the results of the broad implementation of ISNI (International Standard Name Identifier) within the cultural sector and copyright management organisations in Finland. You will also see how the National Library of Finland (NLF) has led the coordination of ISNI projects and helped establish common practices among organisations. You will then discover how ISNI has been adopted in practice, including its integration into systems used by CMOs, museums and archives. The implementation has improved contributor’s data quality, interoperability and the consistency of metadata across organisations. In addition, you will hear about the NLF’s long-term vision for building a national ISNI ecosystem.
ISNI operations in Finland have developed rapidly over the past few years, driven by a series of national ISNI projects and growing collaboration across the cultural and creative industries. The National Library of Finland (NLF) serves as the ISNI registration agency and plays a central role in supporting Finnish organisations in the adoption and implementation of ISNI.
During the recent projects, ISNI has been broadly adopted by Finnish copyright management organisations (CMOs) and piloted in museum and archive systems. These pilots have demonstrated how a persistent identifier for contributors can significantly improve the reliability, accuracy and interoperability of metadata. By enabling organisations to refer to contributors in a consistent and unambiguous way, ISNI improves the quality of metadata exchanged between cultural organisations and CMOs.
The key outcomes of the projects has been the strengthening of cross-sector collaboration. Cultural heritage institutions, CMOs, archives and museums have worked together more closely than before, sharing practices and exploring ways to support smoother metadata exchange. This collaboration will hopefully help in future to build a more cohesive community around users of ISNI. In the presentation, we will discuss how this collaboration emerged, what kinds of challenges we encountered during implementation and how these challenges were addressed in practice. Issues such as data quality, organisational workflows, and different levels of technical readiness have all shaped the implementation process. By reflecting on these experiences, we aim to provide insights that may be useful for other countries or organisations considering similar initiatives.
We will also present concrete examples of the benefits that ISNI has brought to different sectors. These include improved contributor data quality, more efficient data exchange and reduced duplication of work.
Looking ahead, the NLF has outlined a long-term vision for building a national ISNI ecosystem. This vision describes the development path of ISNI operation in Finland and identifies key steps needed to integrate the identifier more deeply into the national metadata infrastructure. These measures include expanding the use of ISNI to new sectors, strengthening automated workflows, improving data governance and ensuring a reliable operational environment.
In the presentation, we will provide an overview of the process made so far, the lessons learned, and the strategic direction for the coming years.
We could talk about all themes: how these projects have helped to strength community across sector, what kind of challenges we dealt with, and the tangible benefits of adopting ISNI in different sectors, as well as the potential ones.
In the section we also want to present NLF’s long-term vision for a national ISNI ecosystem, which outlines Finland’s development path and key measures for integrating the identifier into the national metadata infrastructure.
I can provide the biography later.