The Greek ISMN Agency has been operating as part of the Acquisitions Department of the National Library of Greece since June, 2003. Preliminary steps such as press announcements etc. have been taken in order to make our new services known to the public and allow music publishers to show their interest for the new standard. A Greek translation of the Users' Manual has been published and distributed in printed version to publishers and all relevant institutions and libraries, in order to introduce them to the ISMN system; the electronical version can be found on the web:www.nlg.gr.

Music publishers are allocated publisher identifiers free of charge from our Agency, by filling in a registation form, building in this way the Greek Music Publisher Register. By application forms, also, they obtain ISMN numbers for their titles. After the music items being published, the publishers are obliged to send one (1) copy of each title to the Greek ISMN Agency and two (2) copies to the National Library of Greece under the terms of the legal deposit law.

By the end of 2003 the Greek ISMN Agency had allocated publisher IDs to fifteen (15) music publishers and had assigned 140 ISMNs to their publications. Four (4) of the publisher IDs have been allocated to author--publishers.

The International ISMN Agency has been warmly supportive to us with the implementation of the ISMN system in Greece and we are looking forward to further cooperation in the future. In 2004, we expect to increase the coverage of Greek music publishers using ISMNs, as the service becomes more widely known throughout Greece.