4 ms·

Doesn’t the library of Congress in the US issue ISBN numbers for each book published. there must be a public listing of those. After some looking, there are So

Doesn’t the library of Congress in the US issue ISBN numbers for each book published. there must be a public listing of those. After some looking, there are Some private databases with millions of # but no official site. Eg https://isbndb.com/isbn-database https://isbndb.com/isbn-database

deleted 6y ago
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pmyteh 6y ago
No. ISBNs are issued by publishers, from delegated blocks, and there's no unified listing. For books in the collections of large libraries (like the LoC) there will be a public catalogue entry with the ISBN attached, but they don't assign it. There were also a lot of books published before ISBNs were created, and not every book has an ISBN attached even to this day.
- bloak 6y ago
  That is all correct. Another consideration: occasionally an incompetent publisher puts the same ISBN on two unrelated editions. A bibliographer might just carefully record what's printed on the book, but many users of ISBNs won't be at all happy with that "solution".
  - efreak 6y ago
    I've seen a number of books, mostly children's books from scholastic, with different editions (different art, copyright, etc) that have the same ISBN number. I've since removed most duplicate books from my collection, but I had found a bunch when I last sorted my books; Maniac Magee is the only one I can remember by title. More annoying was the book with a CD attached to the front, that caused the finish to peel off when the CD was removed (the CD contained a non-working installer for a screensaver that, when extracted using other tools, also didn't work).
- dmitriid 6y ago
  Also: ISBNs often change when publishers are bought, split, sold, merged etc.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Correction; ISBNs are issued to publishers, by an issueing agency or firm (R. R. Bowker LLC in the US, now owned by ProQuest). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Nu... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._R._Bowker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._R._Bowker http://www.bowker.com/products/ISBN-US.html http://www.bowker.com/products/ISBN-US.html
toddh 6y ago
On amazon you can get an ASIN so you don't have to buy an ISBN. So there's no universal book identifier.

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pmyteh 6y ago

No. ISBNs are issued by publishers, from delegated blocks, and there's no unified listing. For books in the collections of large libraries (like the LoC) there will be a public catalogue entry with the ISBN attached, but they don't assign it. There were also a lot of books published before ISBNs were created, and not every book has an ISBN attached even to this day.

bloak 6y ago
That is all correct. Another consideration: occasionally an incompetent publisher puts the same ISBN on two unrelated editions. A bibliographer might just carefully record what's printed on the book, but many users of ISBNs won't be at all happy with that "solution".
- efreak 6y ago
  I've seen a number of books, mostly children's books from scholastic, with different editions (different art, copyright, etc) that have the same ISBN number. I've since removed most duplicate books from my collection, but I had found a bunch when I last sorted my books; Maniac Magee is the only one I can remember by title. More annoying was the book with a CD attached to the front, that caused the finish to peel off when the CD was removed (the CD contained a non-working installer for a screensaver that, when extracted using other tools, also didn't work).
dmitriid 6y ago
Also: ISBNs often change when publishers are bought, split, sold, merged etc.
dredmorbius 6y ago
Correction; ISBNs are issued to publishers, by an issueing agency or firm (R. R. Bowker LLC in the US, now owned by ProQuest). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Nu... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._R._Bowker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._R._Bowker http://www.bowker.com/products/ISBN-US.html http://www.bowker.com/products/ISBN-US.html

toddh 6y ago

On amazon you can get an ASIN so you don't have to buy an ISBN. So there's no universal book identifier.