I just tried to enter a 2008 reference bible into LT using the ISBN. I ran the query against Amazon, LoC, and three other US collections. Having no success, I then went to the web and ran a search on the ISBN via Google, figuring that it might pop up in a general search. No luck. I then went to the publisher's site to search for the specific Bible, thinking that the publisher (Thomas Nelson) *had* to have the right information. No luck, no publication web page or reference, no nothing. The bible might as well never have been printed.

I therefore put it to you kind professionals. Can someone explain or remind me in what circumstances an ISBN might be wiped out of our collective memory?

For the record, I was trying to enter the Take Note Bible (ISBN 9781418541552). This is by no means a crisis if I can't enter the volume into LT, but it is a striking peculiarity in my experience and I just cannot figure out what is going on here.

Well, just to point out, there is nothing stopping you from entering the book here in LT correctly if you have the book in your possession. There is a little link farther down the page with 'add book manually' link. After all the searching you've done, it probably would have been faster to add manually.

That makes me wonder if the ISBN on the bible is a misprint. Does the publisher list a different ISBN for that edition?

You could also try the 10-digit ISBN: 1418541559

I found a webpage listing for the 13-digit ISBN, but not in a library
http://www.campusi.com/Thomas_Bibles/0/1...

There are a few listings under Barnes & Noble too, but they don't provide a search interface for LT.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksea...
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksea...

Bibles can be hard to find though, since, well, there are a lot of them.

>That makes me wonder if the ISBN on the bible is a misprint. Does the publisher list a different ISBN for that edition?

I ran it through an ISBN checker, and it was fine, so there isn't a printing error in it, at least.

Was the bible sold as part of a package? Is it a version customized for a particular program? In academic pubishing, it is not uncommon for books to be sold as either a package with extra items - a study guide, lab guide, web access code, etc. - or for books to be customized for a particular school. These alternative versions have their own ISBN's, which are commonly not shown to the regular retail world, even via the publisher's own website.

The title being "Take Note Bible" is what made me think it might have been an academic version, or at least a situation similar to the academic publishing world.

The bible in question was purchased at a Barnes and Noble brick-and-mortar store. It doesn't appear to have been customized for any particular school, group or institution.

The ISBN appeared both on the outer packaging (a stiff cardboard wraparound) and internally; there was no misprint in the sense that the number internally and externally matched.

That same cardboard wrap-around does indicate that the bible was sold as a "reference" bible. The chief selling point quite honestly of this particular re-packaging of the Bible is that the publisher included wide margins so that the owner of the Bible could write down his or her thoughts (hence the name, the Take Note Bible).

What really surprised me is that I can find no digital evidence (on the web) that this particular title with its specific ISBN exists. It has -- for all intents and purposes -- been made a phantom. I can add it manually to LT as someone above noted, but my point is that a recent title (2008) from a reputable publisher who has assigned the book a unique identifier (ISBN) shouldn't become a phantom quite so soon after publication. Unless there is some quirk about Bibles and ISBNs that I am not aware of.

That's why I'm inquiring.

When Barnes and Noble publishes their own books, you won't find them on Amazon or library listings.

There are a couple examples of that book on the web, as I mentioned in my post above.

infiniteletters, your pointers were indeed useful and I thank you. To my surprise, I could unearth the particular book in their catalogue although the particulars seem a little off. They list the publication date as being April 2009 rather than the 2008 I noted on the packaging. I will have to look more carefully at the physical volume when I get home tonight to see if there are further clues I missed.

You may indeed be onto something with the idea that the Bible was packaged specifically as an exclusive to B&N. I hadn't considered that a major retailer might be interested in making a deal with Thomas Nelson, Inc. to carry an exclusive edition of something that might not be considered an particularly uncommon item. But I ought to have remembered that I have a copy of The Three Musketeers that Borders put out that I have to fix manually.

Message edited by its author, Jul 2, 2009, 3:32pm.

>They list the publication date as being April 2009 rather than the 2008 I noted on the packaging.

When I worked at a university library, we frequently got 2007 books in late 2006, so expected publication dates don't always correspond exactly with when the book was first made available. If the book was published specifically for B&N, that might have been another factor in speeding up the process from publisher to retailer.

Message edited by its author, Jul 2, 2009, 4:37pm.

Well, when I went into the volume a little more carefully, it turns out that the only copyright date specified internally is (c) 1982 associated specifically with the New King James Translation. I would imagine that the outer wrapping (c) date was associated with the marketing copy.

And what I stated above about the internal and external ISBNs being the same also proved to be incorrect. I was mistaken; the copyright page shows no ISBN whatever. Clearly, Thomas Nelson produced the packaging (ie. the binding and cover design) but claimed no other ownership of the book's content. I dont' know enough about bible publishing to be sure if the NKJV is a copyright held by a broader group or who has the formal rights to the translation.

Copyright of NKJV is held by Thomas Nelson Inc. (1982).

I agree that B&N will self publish things, also if there is a reprint by another publisher of a previous book the new one is not in the database. If you ever find yourself having to catalouge a Canadian Book and want to check ISBN numbers:

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/isn/0...

Take care... Jim