I have added a load of books to my library using ISBN, searching in amazon.com. I realised late on I would have been better using amazon.co.uk, because I have a lot of books now listed under the wrong publisher, edition etc. Would it be possible to have a feature to search under ISBN and Publisher, in order to have a shorter list of books to choose from when adding to the library?

Different publishers should mean different ISBNs...
Other from this - I always verify the publisher before adding (pressing the more under the title will show you more details).

You can search by ISBN and publisher is part of that ISBN. So I guess the answer is: it's already there.

I believe you can just add a word from the publisher's name into the search box, after a comma. (So, King Lear, Penguin or the ISBN comma Penguin etc.)

Usually searching by ISBN will pinpoint the right publisher, but sometimes the a book will change publisher's hands after several printings or will be listed under one publisher in the US and another in the UK (same company, basically, but different names in different countries). I usually get the most precise edition data by searching using ISBN and using library sources (Library of Congress, British Library), but in some cases amazon.co.uk is more comprehensive for books printed in the UK.

Message edited by its author, Jul 10, 2009, 6:29pm.

Yes, all that happens but the ISBN code includes digits about the publisher. Believe me: any ISBN starting with 0486 will always be Dover Publications and 014 = Penguin. If taken over by another publisher the ISBN will change as well.

I believe that even if a book is published by a UK and US branch of the same publisher, both editions will have different ISBNs - might be wrong though.

Sometimes, though, a book's data at the source (library, bookstore) will have several ISBNs linked to the same book. So you search for one ISBN (for the paperback), and what it pulls up is a record with another ISBN (for a hardback, or a later printing). It uses the ISBN you type in as a search term, but if the book has several ISBNs linked to it in the source, the data pulled back into LT may be for one of the other ISBNs.

Still, I don't know how this would work for UK vs. USA, because in my experience these do have different ISBNs, as AnnieMod notes.

It might be useful if the OP posted some examples of ISBNs used to search, and wrong editions that were added/imported.

For instance - Isaac Asimov's Foundation - 586010807. Search under amazon.co.uk or amazon.com: I get a Collins edition. On the cover of the book it's "Panther Science Fiction".
Likewise - Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood - 0586065857. On amazon: it's published by Voyager, On the book cover, it's Grafton.
(Naturally, now that I'm looking for a difference between amazon.co.uk and amazon.com, I can't find one!)
--
Ah - here's One - Shikasta, 0586053107 - "Hunter" from Amazon.com, "Grafton" from Amazon.co.uk

#8

I think there is some confusion here between imprints and publishers.

0586065857 for example refers to an English publication (prefix 0 for UK) and the 58 onwards includes a Harper Collins prefix and the book ID with the final digit as a check digit (although the industry has now moved to 13 digit isbns)

Both Grafton and Voyager are imprints of Harper Collins, Grafton is an older imprint and Voyager is the current incarnation of the Harper Collins Fantasy & Science Fiction imprint.

As BarkingMatt mentioned earlier 014 is a Penguin prefix (the main one) but Penguin includes other imprints or divisions including among others Dorling Kindersley and Rough Guides to name but two in the UK (these do not carry the 014 prefix)

As a rule of thumb the shorter the publisher prefix the bigger the publisher - books with a 6 out of 10 digit publisher prefix are likely to be about ostrich farming and are probably published by somebodies 'uncle Bob' from the shed at the bottom of his garden.

Imprints may be rebadged/changed or subsumed within a publishing house (or bought up from another publisher) and new isbns are not necessarily updated although they may change as newer editions are rejacketed and reissued at later date.

The best advice if you search by isbn is to look out for the extra information and watch for year as well as publisher - a listing for Harper Collins, Voyager or Grafton is all referring to the same publisher (look at the title page inside the book and it will often tell you that XXX is a division or imprint or XXXXXXX etc.

Short version of 9 is US book - Amazon, UK book - Amazon UK, Canadian book - Amazon.ca

which is what was already concluded in 1 anyhow. You could search by ISBN, publisher to limit results, but you'd be better off just searching the appropriate regional sources.

:)

As #9 pointed out - too much info (sorry).

Just checked - Best advice is to search against isbn ONLY, you should only get one result - don't include any other search times.

Shouldn't matter what version of Amazon you check against (unless they haven't got it listed at all in which case try another one).

Adding any other search time will throw up multiple options that may be wrong.

Just don't worry too much about the way the edition is listed - edit your copy to reflect the year, imprint and cover etc.

If you pulled up the right isbn, you have the right book.

Message edited by its author, Jul 10, 2009, 10:02pm.

8: 0586 is the publisher code for Collins, yes. However Collins, strictly speaking they have been Harper Collins for many years now, produces most of its books under imprints of varying names which generally correspond to genre. This is just a marketing device and the imprint can be different for the same book in the UK and the US. The imprint details relating to your books are well described by lmb in post 9. As long as the record in your library has the same ISBN as the one you used in the search, it is highly likely that you have the right publisher and edition information and any difference in name is due to imprint the publisher is using, which can change over the years.

v

Thank you all. I think I got most of that, and I found the distinction between imprints and publishers was helpful. Also - pick the right source! Final note - right ISBN => right book is a bit optimistic on amazon.com...

Also, if you search by ISBN, and the source has a combined record, you may end up with a different ISBN in your record than you searched on.