Ebooks and ISBNs

[pilotbob]

Yes, thanks for the reminder. I thought it was 34 to the 9th or 34! (factorial) I was to lazy to figure it out.

Originally Posted by radius

With 9 places, you can have 34^9 or just short of 61 * 10^12

In other words a damn whole heck of a lot!

Oh, and as to capitals vs lower case. I don't think that is an issue (always display or correct data entry to upper case) nor is language and issue. Arabic letters are pretty much universtally understood. The ISBN doesn't contain words so I don't see how language enters into it.

BOb

[pilotbob]

Now, who is going to submit this thread to the ISBN for consideration?

BOb

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Arabic letters are pretty much universtally understood.

I guess you mean Arabic digits or Latin letters

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Jellby

I guess you mean Arabic digits or Latin letters

Yes, exactly.

BOb

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

It is actually much smaller than that. Only three digits are used to identify the book itself, so that gives the same publisher only 1,000 ISBNs for each country code (unless the publisher has more than one publisher code).

After thinking about it, a more workable solution to the problem it could be a universal book ID number (one completely separate from the ISBN) to identify a specific book. When a book is first released it gets an ID number, and all future versions of that book carry the same ID number.

To provide an illustration, the code could be as follows (each part is separated by a period):

- Language Number: A three digit code that indicates the book's language.

- ID Number: A nine digit code (allows for 1,000,000,000 titles) that identifies a specific book.

- Abridgement Number: A one digit code that indicates if the book is/is not an abridgement of the original book (not uncommon with audiobooks).

- Version Code: A three digit number to the specific format (printed hardback, printed paperback, PDF edition, and so on).

Just a thought. What do you think?

So would the nine digit code identify the book + publisher or other edition information? I ask because a book may have printings from different publishers. You see this a lot with Public Domain books. Since anyone can publish them you will find the same type of format from multiple sources. How many paperback versions of Jane Austen or Charles Dickens have you seen? Lots. Even with ebooks, I could find you several different copies of many classics in the same format put together by different people.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Direct Ebooks

Currently, a publisher must have a seperate isbn numer for the eBook version of a book, NOT one for each ebook format, although for some reason, some distributors seem to want it that way.
I think one isbn for all ebook formats is adequate at present, but as we begin moving towards appreciating and providing the content of a book rather than the context in as many ways as the consumer wants, we will have to look at a different system with perhaps a parent digital isbn with multiple identifiers applicable in the last 2 digits.

ISBN is like a UPC to a retailer. Most want to track each and every item sold.
A different version, is a different item. Just like a red shirt is different from a blue shirt of the exact same size and cut.
They want to SCAN each item with little or no additional intervention from untrained help.

If you sell paper, Audio AND Hardbound, you want to know what to order without having to eyeball the bin.

The stores that don't care which item sells (stocked by a jobber?), use the UPC which only indicates the publisher (first 6 digits and the price (next 5 digits) . Department Stores like this method because the don't need to maintain the each and every book, only for books with different prices.

The last digit is a check digit to let the equipment know that the other digits calculate "as correct". (there is a second part of a UPC called "supplemental".
This is used to cod Magazine "issue" numbers" (01-12),It could contain the Missing part (title #) of the book. (price lookup usually uses only the first part, but the system may be able to "capture" the supplemental.

UCC14 barcodes take in Packaging difference.

Ever by a 6-pak of canned Coke (can sodas, in general)? The barcode is on the can not the plastic binder. So when the clerk scans, does it represent a loose can or a 6-pak? A barcode can only represent 1 per-unit price (a can or a Pak).
If you put the can price in, a 6-pak goes out the door under charged. If you put a 6-pak price in, the loose can purchaser gets over charged ("Price override on 6")

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Alisa

So would the nine digit code identify the book + publisher or other edition information? I ask because a book may have printings from different publishers. You see this a lot with Public Domain books. Since anyone can publish them you will find the same type of format from multiple sources. How many paperback versions of Jane Austen or Charles Dickens have you seen? Lots. Even with ebooks, I could find you several different copies of many classics in the same format put together by different people.

The nine digit ID Number would just identify the story itself. As an example, no matter who releases "Silas Marner" by George Elliot, the nine digit number would be the same. The other parts of the universal book ID number just provide more information so you can better have search results. As it is described, it would allow you to easily find versions of the book in your own language.

One of the reasons that this is interesting to me is that I'm a comic book collector, and often it is very confusing to track many comic book series. For example, many series (such as Superman, Wonder Woman, Legion Of Super-Heroes, Fantastic Four, and The Doom Patrol) have multiple number one issues (Legion Of Super-Heroes alone has at least four number one issues). Added to this are the out-of-order issue numbers (in one month all comics published by DC Comics were numbered "0" and in another month they were all numbered "1,000,000" regardless of the previous and next issue number). It makes it very difficult to keep track of many series, and I might need a tracking system like I previously mentioned just make sense of it all.

[Sweetpea]

I'd love a singe base ISBN for a book. Adding extra codes to differentiate between formats would be a nice addition, but the base code would be the same.

[CathalMagus]

I've been studying ISBNs for software I'm writing, and there are indeed limitations in what it can identify. The strongly-suggested use is to have one ISBN for every separate edition of a book. But a single ISBN may refer to different printings, even with different cover images. Or in a different size. When talking about the "same" edition, it usually means roughly that between the two physical books each chapter starts on the same page in both copies. (This allows for fixing errata between printings.)

I think ISBN will always be limited in this way, and ISBN International should come up with additional codes for identifying unique printings, and possibly for identifying unique 'works' where the text is the same but the pagination may be different. But trying to tie that to ISBN would over-complicate a very simple code intended for use by booksellers.

In the mean time, in my software I just invent UUIDs for identifying individual printings and specific works; if a new numbering system came along, I could integrate it quite easily, but in the mean time dumb identifiers serve the same purpose for local catalogues.

[llreader]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The idea of a single ISBN for every format of a given eBook is a bad idea.

I can't agree with this more. It seems like an incredible amount of useless bean-counting. Why is it locked to a specific format? Are you supposed to be able to identify a specific page within a format? It seems like that would require font and screen size for an ebook.

And format-shifting would create all kinds of chaos.