[Sca-librarians] ISBNs (was Worldcat)
Marc Carlson
marc-carlson at utulsa.edu
Fri Oct 21 09:44:04 CDT 2005
Just an aside - I know it will be a bit of a shock, but ISBN numbers
aren't the be-all and end-all of book identification that they seem to
be in SCAcademics. They can be useful, especailly if you want a
specific edition of a particular work, but can be misleading when it
keeps you from seeing the 40 other virtually identitical versions of the
same work, but that have different ISBNs.
All an ISBN is is a publishers identification number, so they can keep
track of specific editions and such. They get used for more than that
sure, but as with the OED, there are a lot of weird assumptions that get
made about them too :)
These are 10 (or soon a 13) digit numbers that are broken into four
categories by hyphens. These are country-publisher-book-a check digit.
Solveig's ISBN is 4588321013 (which is, I believe: 4-588-32101-3) -- I
cen tell you the title's in Japanese :) and this may be why she didn't
give us a title (what with transliterating problems) it is available on
Amazon-Japan, but don't ask me what it says :) Since I can't cut and
paste those characters into firstsearch, I can't search by them.
4 is Japan.
588 is Hosei Univeristy Press
32101 is ?
Marc/Diarmaid
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