Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani today launched a portal for registration and allotment of International Standard Book Number (ISBN) in New Delhi. <br/><br/>The portal seeks to completely automate the process of seeking application, their examination and allotment of ISBNs. She said the ISBN portal has been created in a short period of time, to facilitate publishers as well as the authors to register for ISBN online. <br/><br/>Ms Irani also said after the feedback from the publishers, a mobile app in the regional languages would also be launched to reach out to more and more publishers and authors across the country. <br/><br/>She hoped that the publishers and authors from small towns would also be benefited from this initiative. To address the problem of free download of works of authors from the internet, she assured the author fraternity that the issue will be discussed with the concerned ministries including DeitY.<br/><br/>ISBN is a unique number used to identify monographic publications. Displayed in barcode format, ISBN is a 13 character identification allotted by International ISBN Agency based in UK through the National ISBN Agency. <br/><br/>It provides access to bibliographic data bases used by the book industry and libraries to provide information. Raja Ram Mohan Roy National Agency for ISBN is responsible for ISBN registration in the country and is affiliated to UK based International Agency. The ISBN Numbers are allotted free of cost.