Thanks for info Fibrowitch!

The answer as to what we'd like members to add to Goodreads is here: http://www.goodreads.com/help/show/34. Basically, we prefer to stick to books, but we don't require ISBN's since not all books have them.

ISBN-13's are now available from Amazon, and we are planning to add them soon as a new field in the book data.

I have been doing some research into the ISBN system.
While larger publishers started using the system in the early 70's it was not standard through the publishing industry until 1988. So while a big publisher, would have ISBN, smaller publishers, such as SF imprint Tor did not start using ISBN until 1988.

We also have to talk about what we are going to do to update the books from the old ten digit number to the new 13 digit number.

I did find a nice PDF to explain the changes. It was written for the organization by the 'for dummies' company.


http://www.bisg.org/isbn-13/ISBN13_For_D...

Jan

I've manually added many old books that don't have ISBNs. Many great books were written before the ISBN system! ISBN entry is optional here, although I always add them when available.

They don't have to be really old books to lack an ISBN. Some books published by small presses don't bother with them either. Hasn't stopped me from adding them by hand.

And I don't really add them "to show off what I've been reading," either. In at least one case, I know for sure that some of my friends have read the book too, and other might want to.

I just recently read through some great old hardcover books from a flea market, all printed in the early 1900s. Was wondering what the policy on adding them would be? I could manually add them without ISBNs, but being the techno-snob that I am, I kinda don't think they exist until they have ISBN/ASIN or whatever. If I add them just to show off what I've been reading, am I cluttering Goodreads? And if we're allowed to add something without an ISBN, what stops someone from adding comic books or pamphlets that don't have ISBNs? What exactly is the definition of book, what are the limitations to what we can add?

Blowing things out of proportion,
--Matt