History of ISBN’s

What is an ISBN on used books? Everything has a history and so do ISBN’s. David Whitaker was the man who conceived the concept of International Standard Book Numbers in 1967 in the United Kingdom. David Whitaker is since known as the father of ISBN. ISBN’s immediately became a fundamental element in the world of books. In 1968 Emery Koltay conceived the idea in the U.S, who later became the director of the U.S ISBN Agency.

The existing 10-13 digit format was developed by the ISO, which was published in 1970 as international standard ISO 2108 and new sections are added since then for improvised understanding and use of ISBN’s worldwide. ISO appointed International ISBN Agency as the registration authority for ISBN worldwide. Books older than the times when the International ISBN Agency was formed do not have any ISBN’s. That should be all for the typical history so, moving forward.

We now know where ISBN’s came from, so let’s just get into the details of what the digits say.

Digits of ISBN’s

10 Digits

ISBN’s are 10 digits long if they are assigned before 1^st January 2007.

13 Digits

ISBN’s are 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1^st January 2007.

Method of assigning ISBN’s

The method of assigning ISBN’s is nation-specific. It varies from country to country depending on the size of the publishing industry within a country.

An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation, except if it is reprinted for the same publication.

Elements of the ISBN

ISBN is a unique equation devised to make sure the equation is a multiple of 10. This systematic numerical equation involves a modulo 10 system. It is indeed pretty interesting for the mathematicians but, we will keep the information to the parts of the code for now.

The recent ISBN is the 13 digit code and it has five parts

1. Prefix element
2. Registration Group Element
3. Registration Element
4. Publication Element
5. Check Digit.

What is an ISBN on used books? And why are ISBN Numbers important?

The purpose of ISBN’s is to allow more efficient marketing of products by booksellers, libraries, universities, wholesalers, and distributors. ISBN’s help establish and identify a title from a specific publisher that is unique to that edition. There are 160 ISBN agencies across the world.

Now, the interesting part is that you can find any book you desire through the ISBN. The good news for the book worms is that you can search and buy used books online as well, using the unique ISBN.

Interestingly, ISBN does not provide any form of legal or copyright protection but still some countries do legally require the use of ISBN for the identification of publication.

Problems to watch out for with ISBN’s

Now, there are some problems to watch out for with ISBNs as well. For the books assigned ISBN before 1^st January 2007, the ISBN is going to be shorter than the ones that were assigned on that date or afterward.

You got to know of a book and you want the same edition? You better know its ISBN so that you can search it. Knowing the correct ISBN will get you the exact book you want and not knowing the ISBN could result in buying a few unwanted editions until you come across the right one. We believe that all this information about the ISBN’s will make it convenient for you to be able to identify and buy used books using ISBN.

We recommend

We recommend when you are looking for a specific book on West Cove UK you use our search box which automatically indexes all of the ISBN numbers on the site. Search

You usually find the ISBN on the bar code at the back of a book or on the inside cover page that holds edition information, however this is of no use if you don’t actually have the book! All of the serious book selling websites will show the ISBN for a book on the listing. You can copy this number and paste it into searches such as the search box on West Cove UK or use the search box on Abe Books or Amazon.