Ringgold’s Identify database was initiated as a project of Oxford University Press in 2003; the project aimed to create a metadata schema and populate a database with the uniquely identified institutional subscribers to OUP’s journals. 

When Information Power Ltd, Biblio Tech Ltd, and OpenRFP Inc were combined in 2005, a simple, memorable name was needed. Thus, Ringgold Inc and Ringgold Ltd were established. Some people might have visions of Rhine maidens and Wagnerian magnificence when they ask, "How did you come up with the name Ringgold?" Indeed, it is likely that Rheingold was meant to be the name of Ringgold, the German-Dutch township in Pennsylvania where Chairman Ralph Shoffner’s family lived.

In January 2006, Ringgold joined forces with the British Library, Swets, HighWire Press, Rockefeller University Press, and Oxford University Press in a pilot project to apply its institutional identifiers to all participants’ related subscribing institutions located in the UK.  The project was an attempt to study correlation and duplication of institutions among the participants.  The two important goals were to improve the electronic supply of journals by identifying institutions as digital licensing units and to do so within a standards-based paradigm.

One outcome of the project was agreement to push for NISO to support creation of a formal standard and, thereby, the eventual creation of the I2 Study Group within NISO. By early 2011, NISO and ISNI agreed that the activities of the NISO I2 Standard Identifiers workgroup would be subsumed under the ISNI standard.

In 2012, Ringgold became the first contracted ISNI registration agency for institutions, click here for further details. Ringgold acquired Book News Inc in July 2012 and following this a new product ProtoView was launched in 2013. After detailed research and customer consultation we recently published our new subject taxonomy, which is being considered by COUNTER for the Journal Usage Factor.