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The International Standard Book Number, or ISBN (sometimes pronounced "is-ben"), is a unique identifier for books, intended to be useful commercially. There is another quite similar system, the International Standard Serial Number ( ISSN), for periodical publications such as magazines. 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. It was adopted as international standard ISO 2108 in 1970.
Each edition and variation (except reprints) of a book receives its own ISBN. The number consists of four parts:
The different parts can have different lengths and are usually separated by hyphens. These hyphens are not strictly necessary however, since prefix codes are used which ensure that no two codes start the same way. If present, they must be placed correctly; instructions are given here, however they are not sufficient 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, 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 this complete list.
The publisher number is assigned by the national ISBN agency, and the item number is chosen by the publisher.
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 occasionally correspond to the same publisher.
The check digit is the sum of the digit number times the digit, modulo 11, with "10" represented by the character "X". For example, to find the check digit for the 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 + 2So the check digit is 2, and the complete sequence is
Because of a pending shortage in certain ISBN categories the international standards organization will be moving to a thirteen digit ISBN with effect from 1 January 20072007 is a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). Predicted Events January 1 Target date for the admission of Romania and Bulgaria to the European Union. March 1 USS Baltimore to be deactivated. March 19 Partial solar eclipse June NASA's M. This move will also bring the ISBN system into line with the UPCThe UPC Universal Product Code was the original barcode widely used in the United States and Canada for items in stores. The first item to ever be placed under a UPC scanner in a retail store is a 10-pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit chewing gum at Marsh's su barcode system. There is a FAQ document about this change. Existing ISBNs will be prefixed with "978" (and the check digit recalculated); when the "978" ISBNs are exhausted, the "979" prefix will be introduced. Note that publisher identification codes are unlikely to be the same in 978 and 979 ISBNs.