The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W. H. Smith and others in 1965.
The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO 2108. (However, the 9-digit SBN code was used in the United Kingdom until 1974.) An SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prepending the digit '0'. Currently, the ISO TC 46/SC 9 is responsible for the ISBN. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978.
Since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland EAN-13s.
Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure; however, this can be rectified later.
A similar numeric identifier, the International Standard Serial Number (ISSN), identifies periodical publications such as magazines.
Read more about International Standard Book Number: Overview, Check Digits, EAN Format Used in Barcodes, and Upgrading
Famous quotes containing the words standard, book and/or number:
“Where shall we look for standard English but to the words of a standard man?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“To me a book is a message from the gods to mankind; or, if not, should never be published at all.... A message from the gods should be delivered at once. It is damnably blasphemous to talk about the autumn season and so on. How dare the author or publisher demand a price for doing his duty, the highest and most honourable to which a man can be called?”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)
“... in every State there are more women who can read and write than the whole number of illiterate male voters; more white women who can read and write than all Negro voters; more American women who can read and write than all foreign voters.”
—National Woman Suffrage Association. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)