Introduction
The International Standard Book Number
(ISBN) has been invented for more than 30
years. It has experienced remarkable
success. Today, every book, magazines,
cassette, CD bears an ISBN. Every item to
be sold in bookstore is required to furnish
an ISBN. The ISBN is used extensively by
publishers, retailers as wells as libraries
to manage inventory. The ISBN is
represented through an EAN barcode, a.k.a.
Bookland barcode plus an optional 5-digit
(2-digit for magazines) addon. This article
explains the structure of an ISBN, the
relationship between ISBN and EAN barcode,
and its printing requirement.
Structure of ISBN
An ISBN is a 10-digit number preceded
by the letters ISBN. It is usually printed
with an OCR-A font. The ten-digit number is
divided into four parts of variable length,
which are separated by hyphens or spaces.
The four parts are Group Identifier,
Publisher Identifier, Title Identifier and
check digit respectively. Note that the
length of each part is not fixed, though
the total length must be 10.
Group Identifier
The first part of the ISBN identifies a
country, area, or language area
participating in the ISBN system. Group
Identifier 0 and 1 are used in
English-speaking countries.
Click here for
the list of group identifiers throughout
the world.
Publisher Identifier
The second part of the ISBN identifies
the particular publisher within the group.
The publisher identifiers are assigned by
the ISBN group agency responsible for the
management of the ISBN within the country
or area.
Title Identifier
The third part of ISBN identifies a
specific edition of a publication. A title
identifier can consists as many as six
digits.
Check Digit
The check digit is the last digit of an
ISBN. It is calculated based on a modulus
11 with weight 10-2, using X when the
result is 10.
You can find the utility of calculating
check digit of ISBN
here.
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