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Can ISBNs contain letters in place of number?
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Megan wrote: "No ISBNs are listed on the pages in the books containing copyright, publishing history, etc. However, on the spine of The Paradiso is the following: 451-MY1036-125. And, on the spine of The Purgatorio is: 451-MY1046-125. Do I add a zero to the front of each number, and it becomes the ISBN number (0-451-MY1036-125 and 0-451-MY1046-125)? Without zeros, both are curiously only 12 digits long."For those editions, you need to "convert" the number on the spine to a modern ISBN.
Let me start by listing the "parts of an ISBN"
1. for a 13-digit ISBN, a GS1 prefix: 978 or 979 (indicating the industry; in this case, 978 denotes book publishing)
2. the group identifier, (language-sharing country group)
3. the publisher code
4. the item number (title of the book)
5. a checksum character or check digit
Let me take the example of 451-MY1036-125, and address each part:
1. This will convert to an ISBN 10, so no need to add the 978 now (more on this below).
2. You are correct and a 0 should be added at the beginning for the group identifier (it was often left off older books).
3. the publisher code is 451
4. the item number is MY1036, but there are no letters (other than X) in an ISBN. Therefore, the item number is 1036. However, this will leave you short one digit, so you should use 01036.
5. the check sum was also often left off on older book. It can be calculated using the following link (make sure you select ISBN 10 from the little drop-down towards the left):
http://www.isbn-international.org/ia/...
This will give you 0-451-01036-1 for book 451-MY1036-125. Enter it in as the ISBN-10 without dashes as 0451010361. The link above can also convert your ISBN-10 to an ISBN-13 (there's also another one here).
Megan wrote: "My copy of The Inferno, also published by Mentor/New American Library, contains an obvious ISBN-13 on its spine: 0-451-61957-9 250"
This is not an ISBN-13. At this time all ISBN-13's start with 978. What you have is an ISBN-10 with the price, $2.50, attached to the end. Therefore the ISBN-10 for this book is 0451619579.
If all this seems like more than you want to do, you can post the spine numbers here and I will convert them (I have quite a number of vintage books myself that I've had to do this for).
vicki_girl that was excellent! Thanks so much for taking the time to explain it and for including the links. Must copy/paste that to my computer for future reference....
That was possibly the most interesting post I've read on Goodreads. Thanks, vicki_girl.
No ISBNs are listed on the pages in the books containing copyright, publishing history, etc. However, on the spine of The Paradiso is the following: 451-MY1036-125."
No, the only letter which can be in an ISBN is an X to represent ten, and that only in the final (checksum) position. Those look like publisher's cataloging numbers to me. You could put them in the edition field, or note them in the book description.
"My copy of The Inferno, also published by Mentor/New American Library, contains an obvious ISBN-13 on its spine: 0-451-61957-9 250. It was published in 1982."
Actually, that's almost certainly ISBN-10 of 0-451-61957-9 plus a standard price of $2.50. ISBN-13s weren't introduced until 2005.