Pete Dashwood wrote:
>>
>> A modulo-11 scheme, as you point out, sometimes generates a
>> check-digit of "X." That's why all modern check-digit methods use
>> modulo-10 so that the result is always numeric. Further, the only
>> modulo-11 method in common use that I know of is the ISBN (presently
>> being phased out in the book industry).
>
> Is it being phased out?
>
> Having just completed my book on Project Management and waiting on
> proofing and some initial reactions, I thought I better get an ISBN
> and do the legal filing of two archive copies. I found out HOW to do
> this (in NZ it's really pretty easy...) but I haven't done it yet.
>
> I know you're in the business so am interested in your opinion. I
> heard something about them moving to a 13 digit ISBN but nothing
> about it being phased out. In fact, the consensus seemed to be that
> it is useful to have if you are writing a serious book.
>
> Any comment?
Yes, the ISBN is being phased out in favor of ISBN13. The ISBN13 is really
the EAN (European Article Number), but we provincial Americans resist
calling something "European." Books are now being pubilshed in the US with
only the 13-digit number as a designator.
Here's how they got there. The first three digits of the EAN indicate the
country of origin. Since that's already built in to the ISBN, a new
country
was created: "Bookland." Bookland was assigned the country identifier of
"978." Now to get from an ISBN to an EAN (ISBN13) one puts down "978,"
then
the first nine digits of the existing ISBN, then computes a new
check-digit
(modulo 10, thank you) and sticks that on the end. As you can see, there
is
a one-to-one correspondence between the ISBN and the ISBN13.
But, that's all due to change someday soon, as there's evidently been a
civil war in the tranquil country of Bookland. There is now a "North"
Bookland and a "South" Bookland. That is, a new country identifier of
"979"
will be applied to the book universe. The implementation of 979 negates
the
aforementioned one-to-one correspondence.
Here's a brief definition of the ISBN:
The ISBN is made up of three groups of numbers, followed by a check-digit,
all separated by dashes.
The first group is the Group Identifier (country of origin or region) a
1-to-6 digit number. Big countries have little numbers, little countries
have big numbers (0,1 = U.S., UK; 929851=Israel). This is followed by a
dash.
The next group is the Publisher Group, a 2-to-7 digit number. Large
publishers (Oxford, Harpers) have small numbers (00, 06), small publishers
have big numers (Junior League of Memphis = 9774554). Then a dash.
The last group is the unique identifier within the publisher, a 1-to-six
digit number. Then the last dash.
Lastly the check-digit, a single digit or sometimes "X" (remember, this is
modulo-11).
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