Feature Articles

ISBN-13 and YBP
by Ann-Marie Breaux, Senior Manager, Academic Services Development, YBP

ISBNs serve as the lowest common denominator in the book industry. They are used for identification (both to identify a particular work and to distinguish it from alternate versions), transactions (such as searching, ordering, and invoicing), and matching (for bibliographic records, deduplicating search results, marrying enhanced content with its corresponding record in the OPAC, and the like). By now you're probably at least somewhat aware that the ISBN is changing. I'd like to take a few minutes to explain the changes and how YBP will be accommodating them.

ISBNs are expanding to 13 digits, from their current 10. This is being done for a number of reasons. The international pool of ISBNs is running low, and the ever-increasing demand for ISBNs to distinguish alternate formats such as electronic versions only hastens the drain. Similar to the growing use of 10-digit phone numbers in major metropolitan areas, increasing the length of ISBNs expands the available pool so that the book industry will not run out any time soon.

The more compelling reasons for the change are to bring the ISBN numbering system into conformity with international product numbering standards and to decrease the current book numbering systems from three to one. Some retail outlets such as supermarkets sell books via their 12-digit UPC codes rather than their ISBNs. Both the ISBN and the UPC codes will be re-expressed as 13-digit numbers, officially known as EANs. Colloquially, most booksellers continue to refer to that product number as an ISBN, or as "ISBN-13" to distinguish it, for now, from its 10-digit counterpart.

ISBN-10s are constructed of a 9-digit number followed by a calculated 10th check digit which confirms that the preceding digits are correct and the ISBN is valid. ISBN validation helps to guard against transposed numbers and other ISBN formatting problems. All current ISBN-10s can be recalculated as ISBN-13s by removing the check digit, adding 978 at the beginning, and recalculating the check digit. Because a new check algorithm is being used, one side benefit of the change is that ISBN-13s will always end in a digit, never an X.





Once the pool of 978 ISBNs is exhausted, new ISBNs will begin with 979. 979-ISBNs will not be backwards-convertible to ISBN-10s, since the 9-digit "core" (obtained by removing the 979 and the check digit) will duplicate the core of a different title's 978-ISBN.

The "due date" for this change is January 1, 2007. By then, all of our systems should be able to recognize ISBN-13s and to communicate using them exclusively. Before then, much work needs to be done to make our systems and transactions ISBN-13 compliant. Though all books must continue to carry ISBN-10s through 2006, ISBN-13s are already showing up. Publishers are beginning to assign them to forthcoming works, and the Library of Congress is starting to include them in CIP cataloging records. Several weeks ago, YBP's warehouse received our first book bearing only an ISBN-13. Fortunately we were able to calculate the 10-digit equivalent and find the appropriate record in our system.

Some recent examples, taken from title page versos and back covers of books in our warehouse:







  

YBP is actively working on transitioning to the new ISBN-13/EAN standard. We have spent several months analyzing our internal and external systems, and are beginning the conversion programming. In addition, we are in contact with our trading partners such as publishers and integrated library systems vendors to ensure that all of our changes will be compatible.

To date, we have made the following decisions related to customer use of ISBNs:

• Customers will be able to search both 10 and 13-digit ISBNs in GOBI. Individual users will be able to set display preferences that control which ISBN is displayed in search results.
• For ISBNs that have both 10 and 13-digit equivalents (those that begin with 978), libraries will be able to set an account-level preference that will control which format is output in MARC files and electronic invoices, as well as printed products such as invoices, notification slips, and status reports. To start, all customers will be defaulted to 10 digits, with the understanding that they will transition to 13 digits when their local systems are ready to accept them.
• Until 10-digit ISBNs become invalid for transactions, YBP will accept both 10 and 13-digit ISBNs in electronic orders. At this time, we are not yet prepared to accept 13-digit ISBNs in e-orders, but are working on it.
• Depending on the particular format of their orders, electronic ordering customers may need to migrate to a new format. EDIFACT, X12, and Tradacoms EDI standards will be able to accommodate ISBN-13. YBP is working with the various integrated library system vendors to confirm the modifications they will make to electronic orders in these formats, and will adjust our programming accordingly. BISAC orders cannot accommodate ISBN-13; customers ordering via BISAC will need to plan to convert to an alternate e-ordering format before January 1, 2007. Other e-ordering formats will be assessed individually, as necessary.

As a service to our customers and our partners, YBP is providing additional information and background documentation at the following URL: http://www.ybp.com/ybp/isbn13.html.

We've also been working with others to get the word out to the broader library community. One of our colleagues at Baker and Taylor is deep into the fray of ISBN expansion. Eric Throndson, B&T's Manager of Third Party Systems Integration, is also the Chair of BISG's Internet Commerce Committee. BISG has issued guidelines aimed to make the transition period as stable and transparent as possible. Eric's background article on ISBN-13 appeared in the December 2004/January 2005 issue of Against the Grain. As members of ALA's Publisher-Vendor-Library Relations Interest Group, we also participated in an open forum on ISBN-13 at Midwinter, along with representatives from Wiley, Ingram, Talis, and the University of Chicago. Look for articles from not only those panelists, but also from Bowker, the Library of Congress, and OCLC in the April 2005 issue of Against the Grain.

In the meantime, we're interested in your ISBN-13 experiences. Please send along any questions, concerns, or interesting examples you may have. Though much work remains ahead of us in the coming year, we look forward to putting this conversion task behind us so that we can continue to receive books from our suppliers and supply them to our customers quickly and efficiently.