ISBN

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ISBN is the abbreviation of International Standard Book Number, an international code number to uniquely identify books. This can be either 10 or 13 characters. ISBN-10 was in use between 1970 and 2006. Books published from 2007 on carry an ISBN-13. Publishers are not obliged to use the ISBN code but nearly all book retailers will only carry books with an ISBN. (This is why books published by, for example, the Folio society do not carry an ISBN).

Here is a converter between the 10 and 13 character forms: http://pcn.loc.gov/isbncnvt.html . Another formatting and converting tool is IsbnCheckAndFormat.

Some books between 1966 and the mid-1970s have 9-digit SBNs. Convert to ISBN by adding a zero to the front.

Be aware that some early editions do not have the SBN recorded inside the book. They can usually be found on the spine of the book. Some also have the price of the book added as a 3-digit number to the end of the SBN, resulting in a 12-digit number. You can usually check this by comparing the last three digits to the price (e.g. 050 equals 50¢)

Occasionally, the ISBN on the back of a book will not match the title of the book. The correct ISBN can usually be found inside. For example the outside ISBN for Stasheef's The Secular Wizard (0449908593) is the same as that for Prizes by Erich Segal. The inside ISBN (0345376005) is the correct one.

[edit] UPC to ISBN conversion

Some US and Canadian books have a UPC barcode on the back rather than an ISBN. This can be converted to an ISBN using the following UPC vendor code to ISBN vendor code translations. (This list is incomplete.) Cuecats can capture the UPC values, which can be converted to ISBN for LT entry (if you're a whizz with MS Excel - Patentnonsense describes his efforts in this thread).

First Number - Country of Issue (0 = US, 1 = UK) Second Number - Publisher's house Third Number - publication order number of book Last digit - check number

[edit] References

• The International ISBN Agency
• Wikipedia page