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International Standard Book Number

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The International Standard Book Number, or ISBN (sometimes pronounced "is-ben"), is a uniqueOccasionally publishers will use an ISBN in error for more than one title (for example, the first edition of "The Ultimate Alphabet" and "The Ultimate Alphabet Answerbook" have the same ISBN). Conversely, at least one book has been published with four ISBN numbers printed inside, depending on the binding and which of the two joint publishers were deemed applicable to a particular copy. identifier for books, intended to be used commercially. The ISBN system was created in the United Kingdom in 1966 by the booksellers and stationers W H Smith and originally called Standard Book Numbering or SBN (still used in 1974). It was adopted as international standard ISO 2108 in 1970. A similar identifier, the International Standard Serial Number (ISSN), is used for periodical publications such as magazines. From 1 January 2007, ISBNs will be 13 digits long.http://www.lac-bac.gc.ca/iso/tc46sc9/isbn.htm

Contents

Overview

Each edition and variation (except reprints) of a book receives its own ISBN. The number is either 10 or 13 digits long, and consists of four or five parts:

  1. if 13-digit ISBN, a GS1 Prefix, either 978 or 979
  2. the country of origin or language code,
  3. the publisher,
  4. the item number, and
  5. a checksum character.
The different parts can have different lengths and are usually separated by hyphens or spaces. These separators are not strictly necessary, however, as the prefix code ensures that no two codes start the same way. If present, hyphens must be placed correctly;See instructions at http://www.isbn.org/standards/home/isbn/international/hyphenation-instructions.asp however they are not sufficient for identifying the publisher since different agencies are responsible for allocating different ISBN subranges, and a complete, up-to-date list is not available at isbn.org.

The country field is 0 or 1 for English speaking countries, 2 for French speaking countries, 3 for German speaking countries, 4 for Japanese, 5 for Russian, etc. (The original SBN lacked the country field, but prefixing 0 to a 9-digit SBN creates a valid ISBN.) The country field can be up to 5 digits long; 99936 for instance is used for Bhutan.See http://www.isbn-international.org/en/identifiers/allidentifiers.html for a complete list.

The publisher number is assigned by the national ISBN agency, and the item number is chosen by the publisher. There is, in general, no requirement for a publisher to assign an ISBN to a book nor for that book to display its number—but see below for the exception in China. However, many bookstores will only deal with items bearing an ISBN.

Publishers receive blocks of ISBNs, with larger blocks going to publishers that are expected to need them; a small publisher might receive ISBNs consisting of a digit for the language, seven digits for the publisher, and a single digit for the individual items. Once that block is used up, the publisher can receive another block of numbers, with a different publisher number. As a consequence, different publisher numbers may correspond to the same publisher.

The International ISBN Agencyhttp://www.isbn-international.org/ in its official manualAvailable in PDF at http://www.isbn-international.org/en/userman/download/ISBNmanual.pdf states that the 10-digit ISBN check digit, which is the last digit of the 10 digit ISBN, is calculated on a modulus 11 with weights 10 to 2, using X in lieu of 10 where ten would occur as a check digit. This means that each of the first nine digits of the 10-digit ISBN—excluding the check digit itself—is multiplied by a number in a sequence from 10 to 2 and that the resulting sum of the products, plus the check digit, must be divisible by 11 without a remainder.

By this method the calculation for the 10-digit ISBN whose first nine digits are 0-306-40615 would be done thus: 

  10×0 + 9×3 + 8×0 + 7×6 + 6×4 + 5×0 + 4×6 + 3×1 + 2×5
=  0  +  27  +  0  +  42 +  24 +  0  +  24 +  3  +  10
= 130
The next complete multiple of 11 is 12×11 = 132
132 - 130 = 2
So the check digit is 2, and the complete sequence is ISBN 0-306-40615-2.

A second method to find the check digit is by first multiplying each digit of the 10-digit ISBN by that digit's place in the number sequence from 1 to 9, with the leftmost digit being multiplied by 1, the next digit by 2, and so on. Next, take the sum of these multiplications and calculate the sum modulo 11, with "10" represented by the character "X". For example, to find the check digit for the 10-digit ISBN whose first nine digits are 0-306-40615: 

  1×0 + 2×3 + 3×0 + 4×6 + 5×4 + 6×0 + 7×6 + 8×1 + 9×5
=  0  +  6  +  0  +  24 +  20 +  0  +  42 +  8  +  45
= 145
= 13×11 + 2
So the check digit is 2, and the complete sequence is ISBN 0-306-40615-2.

The two most common errors which occur when handling an ISBN number (e.g., typing it in or writing it down) are an altered digit or transposition of adjacent digits. Since 11 is a prime number, the ISBN check digit method ensures that these two kinds of errors will always be detected.

EAN format used in barcodes, and planned upgrade

Currently, the barcodes found on the backs of books (or inside front covers of mass-market paperbacks) are EAN-13; they may be "Bookland"—that is, with a separate barcode encoding five digits for the currency and recommended retail price.For a detailed description of the EAN13 format, http://www.barcodeisland.com/ean13.phtml. "978", the asset code for books, is prepended to the ISBN in the barcode data, and the check digit is recalculated according to the EAN13 formula (modulo 10, 1x, and 3x weighting on alternate digits).

Because of a pending shortage in certain ISBN categories, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) started migrating to a thirteen-digit ISBN (sometimes referred to as ISBN-13) in a process that began on 1 January 2005 and will finish on 1 January 2007. This move will also bring the ISBN system into line with the UPC barcode system. There is a [FAQ document] about this change. Existing ISBNs will be prefixed with "978" (and the check digit recalculated); as the "978" ISBNs are exhausted, the "979" prefix will be introduced. This is expected to happen more rapidly outside the US. Note that publisher identification codes are unlikely to be the same in 978 and 979 ISBNs. Moreover, the old ISBN check digit for a book (when they were 10 digits long) is generally not going to be the same as the book's new check digit in its 13-digit ISBN number.

Since the new 13-digit ISBNs will be identical to the EAN barcoded format of any existing 10-digit ISBNs, this process will not break compatibility with any existing barcodes. This means that moving to an EAN-based system will allow booksellers to use a single numbering system for both book and non-book products without breaking backwards compatibility with existing ISBN-based information, and with only minimal changes to their information technology (IT) systems. For this reason, many booksellers, including Barnes & Noble, have already opted to start the process of phasing out usage of ISBNs in favour of using EAN codes as of March 2005.

However, there is one interesting flaw in the adoption of the EAN barcode system: it is less capable of detecting errors by comparison to the old system. The EAN barcode uses modulus 10 (which is not a prime), and the particular system of weights that are used to compute check digits for EAN allows EAN to detect any single digit error, but not all adjacent transposition errors. Since the 10-digit ISBN system was able to detect both of these kinds of errors, the upgrade to EAN for broad-based compatibility is actually a downgrade in terms of error detection.

ISBNs and book censorship in the People's Republic of China

ISBNs are used as a means of book censorship in the People's Republic of China. For a printer to legally print a run of books, they must have an ISBN, which are assigned in blocks to state owned publishing houses. However, since the 1990s, this means of censorship has become much less effective as state publishing houses, which have been weaned from government subsidy like all state owned enterprises, will now sell ISBNs to the highest bidder without regard to the content.

Footnotes

See also

External links

National and international agencies
Online tools

 

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