12 Facts About ISBN

An ISBN is assigned to each separate edition and variation of a publication.

The method of assigning an ISBN is nation-specific and varies between countries, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country.

The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO 2108 .

Separate ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a publication.

The ISBN is thirteen digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, and ten digits long if assigned before 2007.

Figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits.

Full directory of ISBN agencies is available on the International ISBN Agency website.

The method for the 10-digit ISBN is an extension of that for SBNs, so the two systems are compatible; an SBN prefixed with a zero will give the same check digit as the SBN without the zero.

Each of the first nine digits of the 10-digit ISBN—excluding the check digit itself—is multiplied by its weight, descending from 10 to 2, and the sum of these nine products found.

The ISBN-13 check digit, which is the last digit of the ISBN, must range from 0 to 9 and must be such that the sum of all the thirteen digits, each multiplied by its weight, alternating between 1 and 3, is a multiple of 10.

Publishers sometimes fail to check the correspondence of a book title and its ISBN before publishing it; that failure causes book identification problems for libraries, booksellers, and readers.

So, migration to an EAN-based system allows booksellers the use of a single numbering system for both books and non-book products that is compatible with existing ISBN based data, with only minimal changes to information technology systems.