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ISBN numbers and electronic distribution: What IS an eBook, anyway?
- gjm11 16y agoOne of these days I intend to write a short piece of fiction in which all the usual solecisms occur but are, in context, perfectly correct. So, for instance, there would be a machine for making those cash-withdrawal devices: an "ATM machine". There would be a criminal gang with a big numbered list of identifying numbers and the accounts they apply for, hence lots of "PIN numbers". Perhaps someone would be doing statistics on the rate at which books are published, as measured by the rate of ISBN allocation, so their figures would be "ISBN numbers". And so forth. (The actual article is about the question: when you have a bunch of very closely related things, such as "the same" e-book in different formats, should they get different ISBNs?. The author says that the answer is: they should get different ISBNs if and only if "the supply chain" needs to distinguish between them, and that there are some awkward edge cases for this criterion when dealing with e-books. For what it's worth, I didn't find it enormously interesting.)
- bensummers 16y agoThat was an error in my rewriting of the article title on submission, not of the article author. I must pay more attention in future.