Heftnummer

Heftnummer is a German term meaning "issue number" and denotes the ordinal identifier of a single issue within a serial publication, such as a magazine, journal or newsletter. It is used to distinguish individual installments of a periodical that are issued regularly (monthly, quarterly, etc.) or irregularly. In bibliographic and publishing contexts the Heftnummer is commonly cited together with the Band (volume) and the year, for example "Band 12, Heft 3" to indicate volume 12, issue 3.

Functionally, the Heftnummer aids in ordering, subscription management, cataloguing and citation. Citation formats in German-language scholarly works typically include the Heftnummer when articles appear in specific issues; library catalogs and databases use it to index and retrieve particular issues. The Heftnummer can be numeric or alphanumeric and may reset with each new volume or follow a continuous sequence across years, depending on the publication’s numbering scheme.

Heftnummer differs from terms such as Ausgabe (edition), which can refer to a revised form or special printing, and from ISSN, which uniquely identifies a serial title but not its individual issues. In some contexts, especially in informal usage, Nummer (No.) or Nr. is used interchangeably with Heftnummer. Understanding the Heftnummer is important for precise referencing and locating articles within serialized publications.