Same ISBN for the whole collection

[Javier]

There's a publishing house in Spain that issued several collections using a single ISBN for all the books on each collection/imprint, mainly during the 70s-80s.

All the books in these collections were released individually - as standalones, not as a set. In fact, some of these collections have a few dozens of different titles each.

I consider these as cases of reused ISBNs, but as some of these collections have collective entries (such as Colección: Punto rojo or Colección : La conquista del espacio), I noticed some librarians just refer the users to these entries instead of adding the individual books. So now I wonder if that would be the proper course of action in this case?

[Bruno]

That is a good question.

I found this situation also, and in 2023 editions. here's an example:
https://www.goodreads.com/series/3942...

I ended up adding the ISBN to the first book I added.
Then when I realized that the other books shared the same ISBN, I added them without ISBN.
But I don't think this is a good solution.

I also thought of adding an edition with all 4 books of this colection, like a boxset that would have the ISBN, but I don't think this would be a good solution too, as I would be creating a non-existent boxset.

I hope to learn a good advice/solution from this thread.

[David]

A "reused ISBN edition" is simply an edition with a librarian note.

In this case, the solution would be:

* Add the ISBN to the first book of the series or collection.
* Add a librarian note to the first book stating, "ISBN 1234567890123 is reused by other books in the XXX collection", or "YYY series".
* Add librarian notes to all the other books using this ISBN, indicating, "Reuses ISBN 1234567890123."

Creating a "collective entry" is not only aesthetically wrong, but it also goes against policy. If the rules apply, you can create a series, or if not, use Listopia. However, an entry that represents a series or collection that wasn't published as such should be NABed (marked as invalid).

[Bruno]

Thank you David, that's a really helpful advice

[Javier]

Thanks David. On closer inspection, some of these collective entries were once pages for single titles. I'll see if I can restore the data/covers.