What we talk about when we talk about love.

Steve and I had a hot and nerdy talk about 13-digit ISBNs. Most of your questions should be answered in this handy dandy FAQ.

The gist of the change is this: The prefix "978," which is the UPC code indicator that the product is a book and not a can of peaches, will be added and the last digit, which is a check sum, will be re-calculated. This sounds like a big pain, but publishers already must do this to create the barcode for the back cover (the EAN-13 number, sometimes called Bookland), creating two indicators for every title. Since our modern consumer world is driven by scannables, it makes sense to get rid of the 10-digit indicator.

So, in the future, when you must refer to your ancient 10-digit-ISBN book in a 13-digit-ISBN world, you can rattle off the string of numbers below the zebra stripes of your bar code.

Sometime after 2007, the ISBN standard committee expects ISBNs to run out, and new and existing publishers applying for new blocks will have ISBNs that begin with "979." The link I provided earlier provides some juicy info on why this method had been used to expand the pool of numbers and not others:

The 13-digit solution was proposed since books already carry both the ISBN and the UCC/EAN-13 barcode (i.e. the 10-digit ISBN prefixed by 978 and with a recalculated final check digit). This solution also enables the ISBN system to make use of the "979" EAN prefix which was reserved years ago for the future use of the book trade within the EAN system.

Another factor is that in January 2005 the Uniform Code Council (UCC) will begin migrating the U.S. system of 12-digit UPC barcodes to the UCC/EAN-13 international standard. That change will affect point of sale systems throughout North America. The 13-digit solution for the ISBN system dovetails nicely with this move to the UCC/EAN-13 format in the North American supply chain. It also aligns the ISBN system for books with all other product numbering, making trade with non-book retailers much easier.

Think of all the books sold at Walmart! And leather wallets and canned peaches! It would make sense to have all the products at your store use the same identification system, especially when dealing with multiple suppliers over several industries.

And it will be more efficient and cost-effective to introduce the new 13-digit ISBN while North American users are already adapting to an equivalent change in their UPC bar code system. More information about the UCC/EAN-13 change is available on the Uniform Code Council's Web site at: http://www.uc-council.org/2005sunrise/.

The idea of expanding the capacity by changing to an alphanumeric or hexadecimal ISBN (using a combination of letters and numbers within the 10-digit format), was rejected because it would be incompatible with most barcode systems.

Presumably, this is also why one couldn't arbitrarily add 1, 2, 3, etc more digits to an ISBN to increase the pool. That would also defeat the purpose of moving to a single identifier, the EAN-13 number.

We also rejected the idea of changing the ISBN into a completely "dumb" number and culling all the unassigned ISBN for re-allocation elsewhere in the system. Such a system would be unmanageable without the support of a strong central database to administer the assignment of ISBN and prevent duplication. Developing that central database, even in the form of a distributed network, would make that proposal one of the most costly and complex solutions for users of the ISBN system.

Yes, please, everyone remember that publishing houses aren't built with gold bullion.

So, what happens after we run out of 979-prefixed ISBNs? This page on R.R. Bowker's site indicates that systems should be flexible enough to accomodate possible 32-character ISBNs in the future.