The full English name of ISBN is ISBN. 1966165438+1October, at the third international conference on book market research and book trade rationalization in west Berlin, H. J. Ehlers of Klett Publishing Company of the Federal Republic of Germany put forward the initiative of standard book number, which was recognized as the historical starting point of international standard book number. At that time, many publishing houses and book publishers in Europe were considering using computers for book ordering and bibliographic control. 1967, Britain established the SBN- Standard Book Number Center in Whitaker Company. 1969 In April, the 46th Technical Committee of the International Organization for Standards (ISO/TC46- ISO/Technical Committee 46) drafted the ISBN scheme in Stockholm. 197 1 year, ISO approved the implementation of ISBN worldwide for five years.
The ISBN consists of ten digits. Divided into four segments by three short horizontal lines, each segment has a different meaning.
The first number field is the area code, also known as the group identifier. The shortest number is one digit, and the longest number is five digits, generally taking into account the language, country and region. The countries and regions that voluntarily apply to participate in ISBN system are divided into several regions, and each region has a fixed code: 0, 1 for English. The countries that use these two codes are Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Britain, the United States, Zimbabwe and so on. Stands for French, which is used in French-speaking areas of France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Canada and Switzerland; 3 stands for German and is used in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland; 4 is the code of Japanese publications; 5 is the code for Russian publications; 7 is the code used in China publications.
The group number is divided into five grades, with the length of 1-5 digits, and the specific setting range is as follows:
Group number number
Setting range
Number of groups that can be allocated
Number of allowed publications of each group number (species)
Total number of publications per document (species)
one
0~7
eight
1 100 million
800 million
two
80~94
15
0. 1 100 million
65438+50 million
The position of three
950~997
48
0.0 1 100 million
48 million
four
9980~9989
10
0.00 1 billion
0.0 1 100 million
Five people
99900~99999
100
0.000 1 billion
0.0 1 100 million
total
18 1
100 billion
The second segment number is the publisher identifier, which is assigned by the ISBN center of the country or region. The allowable value range is 2-5 digits. The bigger the publishing house, the more books it publishes, and the smaller the number.
The third paragraph is that the book number (title identifier) is given by the publishers themselves, and the book number of each publisher is fixed. The shortest one and the longest six. The bigger the publishing house, the more books published and the longer the serial number.
The tenth digit is the parity bit of the electronic computer. Fix one bit, the starting and ending number is 0- 10, and 10 is replaced by X.
Four numbers should be connected by a hyphen (-) (for example: 2-02-033598-0). However, some library integration systems can't automatically assign hyphens, and library catalogers don't know much about the segmentation of ISBN, so people often omit hyphens in bibliographic records (for example, 2020335980).
The calibration method of standard ISBN is weighting method, that is, 9 digits from 10 to 2 are respectively multiplied by the first 9 digits of standard ISBN, and the sum of the product plus the check code is divided by the constant 1 1. If it is separable, the number of instructions is correct; If not, ISBN is wrong.
ISBN is used for printed matter, microfilm, educational television or movies, mixed media publications, microcomputer software, atlases and maps, Braille publications and electronic publications.
The institution responsible for ISBN is located in the National Prussian Cultural Heritage Library (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin-Preu? Ischer Kulturbesitz) is an international standard book number institution. One of the main tasks of this institution is to assign regional numbers to lower-level regional institutions. Generally, regional institutions are located in the National Library, but not in some big countries and regions. For example, the regional organization in Britain is Whitaker. Before ISBN came out, it was the national ISBN center in Britain, which can be said to be the pioneer of ISBN. The regional center of the United States is R.R. Bowker; China's regional institutions are located in the Press and Publication Administration. The main work of the regional organization is to accept the application of the publishing house and grant the second paragraph number, that is, the code of the publishing house. The third number and check code are decided by the publishing house.
It is not easy to make every book published in the world have a number and not repeat it. To strictly control the book number within 10 digits, a set of precise design arrangements is needed. The first is the area code. English, French, German, Japanese, Chinese and Russian, the most widely used languages in the world, occupy only one place in order to leave more digits for a large number of publishers and books. The smallest regions, such as Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago, have only five figures. Publisher number is the biggest headache for ISBN designers. Take English as an example. In addition to the area code and check code, there are eight digits used to solve every publishing house and book in English. The number of the publishing house is 2 to 7 digits, and the ISBN is 1 to 5 digits. The ISBN distribution of each publishing house is as follows:
Digital digits of publishing house
Starting number of publishing house
ISBN number
Number of books that can be published
2
00
six
1 000 000
three
200
five
100 000
four
7000
four
10 000
five
85000
three
1 000
six
900000
2
100
seven
9500000
1
10
The smallest publishing house is only 10 ISBN, which is easy to run out. After use, you can apply to the regional organization for another number.
Example:
0- 13-00 1660-8 is an ISBN published by prentiss Hall Publishing House.
0-47 1-00084- 1 is published by ISBN Wiley Publishing House.
2-7000-2444-3 is an ISBN French Gulen Publishing House;
4-80970- 182-4 is ISBN in Oriental Library;
1-9 19876-03-0 is ISBN south Africa NAEP publishing house;
3-9800462-3-0 is ISBN German Free Technology Association;
98 1-238- 187-2 is an ISBN of Singapore World Science Press.
Some publishers publish the same book in branches in different countries or regions, using two different ISBN. For example, the book Introduction to the Murray Project published by springer Publishing House uses 0-387-98465-8 in new york and 3-540-98465-8 in Berlin. For this publishing house, the last six digits (book serial number and parity bit) of the two ISBN are the same. In this case, librarians should sum up experience from practice and search through multiple channels to reduce the omissions in the search. But many publishing houses publish books in different places and use different book numbers. However, when many publishing houses publish in different countries or regions, there is no necessary connection between different ISBN.
After the international standard book number came out, it quickly spread. Mainly because it is initiated by publishing houses, it is of great benefit to both publishing houses and booksellers. Its advantages are: ISBN is a machine-readable code, which is consistent from book production to distribution and sales, and plays a huge role in the book distribution system; Its introduction simplifies the branch procedures of any book industry, such as book ordering, inventory control, bookkeeping and output processes; ISBN can also promote the ordering, purchasing, cataloging and circulation procedures of libraries and document centers. The introduction of ISBN system also serves the flow and use of bibliographic information, providing economic bibliographic control for a country's book production; ISBN is more effective for the book market. It can identify any internationally published book and its publishing house. In the book industry, it is customary to call ISBN book number because it is widely used in stack management. It can be seen that it plays a great role in the development of the book industry.
The following mainly talks about the influence of adopting the international standard book number on the library. Publishers and booksellers have different views on libraries. The library focuses on distinguishing the varieties of books, and books with the same content should have only one ISBN number. In this way, when checking the duplicate, you can check the ISBN to determine whether it is duplicate. But for publishers, ISBN explains the version, binding, language, materials and publishing place of a book. The ISBN is different for books with the same content because of different versions, binding, languages, materials and publishing places. In this way, there are some special relationships between ISBN and books. A book has multiple ISBN, which brings great trouble to librarians. It is impossible to determine whether to copy based on the ISBN alone. Whether ISBN can be used for duplicate checking is controversial. It can be said that ISBN is unique. As long as it is the same, it must be the same book. This can avoid duplication caused by incorrect catalog report, order error and film arrangement error; However, ISBN is not the only duplicate checking method at present, and it must be combined with items such as book titles. In addition, ISBN is a machine-readable code produced to meet the needs of electronic computers, and it can save time by using it to check the duplicate of computers.
Because ISBN is the only international code that can identify publications in bibliographic data, many libraries now use it to check duplicates in interviews and cataloguing. For example, for ordinary books, the cataloging methods of various institutions may be slightly different, and the information reports of publishers and booksellers are not the same, so it is almost impossible for us to let the computer check the duplicates by author or title. However, ISBN is unique and standard, and people can let the computer automatically check its duplication, thus saving a lot of manual labor and then making manual judgments.
However, some special problems should be paid attention to when using ISBN to check duplicate. Some books may have three book numbers (series number, sub-series number and book number). For example, The History of Civilization: A Complete History of Human Beings in Prehistoric Times, published by routledge Publishing House, UK, has 50 volumes, with a total ISBN of 0-415-14380-2; It is divided into six parts, including Greek civilization (7 volumes) (ISBN 0-415-15612-2) and Oriental civilization (10 volume) (ISBN 0 and each volume under each part also has its own ISBN, including Macedonian imperialism and. In addition, the same book is published in different countries with different ISBN, and the ISBN of different binding forms (such as paperback and hardcover) is also different; These situations are very common.
The reference books of ISBN consulted by publishing houses include the International ISBN Catalogue of Publishing Houses compiled by international ISBN institutions. A detailed description of ISBN can be found on the website of ISBN International Center (/homepage/library/about _ isbn.htm).