ISBN?`

Does anyone know why the Folio Society don't publish ISBN codes on their books?

No need if your books aren't carried in retail stores. Many private presses don't use the ISBN (e.g. Folio Society, Easton Press, Franklin (before going out of business), Heritage and LEC (before going out of business), Arion).

Thank you kdweber. I was just curious.

It also means that they don't have to commit to giving away seven (I think) copies under the statutory deposit rules. Not that that is likely to be a major factor to a larger publisher.

The deposit copies are deliverable on books offered for sale in the UK - whether they have ISBNs or not.

May I ask what members do about entering these Franklin/Folio non-ISBN books in their online collections? Are we forced to go manual and simply key the information in by hand? Some of these texts have been around for decades, and it's time-consuming trying to find the correct match without an ISBN.

Thank you.

> 6

I enter all my Folio Society books manually. The covers may be scanned, copied from the FS webpage or, many times, uploaded from members who have provided them previously. Yes, it's time-consuming but also part of the fun...

Definitely part of the fun!

>6 OldScribe2012:

I do a search on title, sometimes "Title, Folio Society" to find the correct "edition" and enter that. I also hand-select the scanned cover, all these FS Devotees usually have scanned the FS cover well before I arrive so I can use that one.

I then enter my custom info (comments, date acquired) and edit out anything I find inappropriate to my copy. Easier / quicker than manual entry.

I'd love to manually enter everything for every title of mine, FS and non-FS, but ... sadly, I haven't found the time for that.

>9 elenchus: I do the same. For OOP Folios I get missing information from Folio 60 or online listings on Abe, as some vendors give lots of info.

I do it all manually but don't bother with the measurements and weight.

I can't weigh my books because I only have kitchen scales.

Wow.

I'll not complain anymore about keying this information piece by piece.

>12 housefulofpaper:

Here are the weights (in pounds, sans slipcase, done with a postal scale) of the Folio Books I share with you for which you don't have a weight listed:

Rachel Ray: 1.46
The Mayor of Casterbridge: 1.26
Tess of the d'Ubervilles : 1.63
Jude the Obscure: 1.60
Lady Anna: 1.42
Dr. Wortle's School: 1.06
The Return of the Native: 1.60
The Three Clerks: 1.89
The Way We Live Now: 2.71
Far from the Madding Crowd: 1.60
The American Senator: 1.92

I might consider that scale thing if I don't have to jump aboard as well.

It's frustrating that when I run a search on "Title Folio" or "Title Year", I never get get a hit. So I go in and enter it all manually and only then do I find an earlier record.

For the latest (2026) edition of Homer's Odyssey or Iliad, if you go to Librarything's Editions list, there is nothing to guide you as to which of those with a Folio or (translated by) Emily Wilson, will actually match as there are multiple independent editions of each publisher and translator. There's simply not enough metadata columns to locate which of the thousands of editions.