German National Library

German National Library (DNB) began assigning URNs as early as 2001, initially on a project basis. The early success of this project quickly led to further development of the service. A subsequent amendment to the Law Regarding the German National Library in 2006 extended the DNB’s collection mandate to encompass online publications and ensure long-term archiving, making the assignment of URNs a standard part of the DNB’s digital deposit and preservation strategy. In addition and also from the very start of the URN-service, the DNB offers institutions and publishers the option to manage their own subnamespace in the namespace urn:nbn:de and to register URNs in it. The number of assigned URNs as well as registered subnamespaces in the urn:nbn:de namespace has been steadily growing, with the milestone of 60 million registered URNs reached in 2024 - only two years after celebrating 50 million registered URNs. Over 450 partners now use the DNB’s URN service to register and manage URNs themselves.