The International Standard Text Code (ISTC) is a unique identifier for text-based works.
The authority responsible for implementing the standard was assigned to The International ISTC Agency Archived 2014-07-15 at the Wayback Machine.
Following a public call for a new organization to support the maintenance and registration of ISTC data in which no other organizations stepped forward, and a subsequent report produced by ISO TC 46/SC 9 on text identification, the ISTC standard was withdrawn from the ISO catalogue of standards in August 2021.
This enables each request for the registration of a textual work to be checked for global uniqueness.
Anybody wishing to check whether or not a particular work has already been registered will be able to do so by accessing a free-to-use search facility available on the International ISTC Agency website.