Does anyone have

[james_davis_nicoll]

A tool they'd recommend for inserting dashes in the right places in 13 digit ISBNs? My go-to sites seem to have gone to 10 digit only or don't work at all.

Comments

[zeborah]

Barcode robot does it sort of - in that it creates an image with the dashes in what I presume to be the right place, so you still have to rekey it. Honestly most of my experience has been in removing dashes because lots of applications behave unpredictably when they're included.

ETA: Or you could use ISBN converter twice...

First...

[ext-2042618.livejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

...You need to define "Right place".

Of the five books within reach only two share a format for the ISBN, they all start "978-n-" and end with dash check digit but in between is 2-6, 3-5, 6-2 and 5-3. A quick trip to the "I need to build two new bookcases" pile shows several 4-4 although no 1-7 or 7-1. It's not even consistent by publisher, the two nearby 3-5s are from Baen, but so is (at least) one of the 4-4.

[oldcharliebrown.livejournal.com]

Here you go: http://www.isbn.org/ISBN_converter

[oldcharliebrown.livejournal.com]

Though it occurs to me that what you want is harder to define, as you need to know the publisher prefix, first. :p

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

How do I feed it an isbn like (heading to Amazon to get an older one) 9781603128766 to get a 13-digit version with the - in the right place?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

The problem is a lot of publishers - not all but a lot - include all 13 ISBN digits but not the dashes and some of the places I review for want the dashes in the right places.

(I get to have recurring annoyances real people don't: nobody but a reviewer cares if the ISBNs are formatted correctly or if the page count is correct. And it's easier for regular readers to avoid being confronted by the surcharge Canadians pay for access to books)

[oldcharliebrown.livejournal.com]

Publishers should be inserting them. I can't imagine why they wouldn't, as they're rather helpful, especially if you want to find a publisher's full output. (You can search by prefix on Amazon is what I mean.)

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

(Obscene rant about how badly many publishers fail at putting information where people can find it in a form where it is useful) It's so consistent I cannot believe it's accidental.

Here's an example from Tor Books:

ISBN: 9780765335999 (http://us.macmillan.com/book.aspx?isbn=9780765335999)

And Baen:

ISBN: 9781451639285 (http://www.baenebooks.com/p-2011-1636-the-devils-opera.aspx)

And how it should be done, from Random House:

ISBN: 978-0-345-52450-8 (http://www.randomhouse.com/book/206876/embassytown-by-china-mieville/9780345524508/)

[erikagillian.livejournal.com]

Publishers were ever thus. So there is a one way to put dashes in? It was up to whoever back in the days.. almost thirty years ago, never mind.

[oldcharliebrown.livejournal.com]

I don't think you can, because the publisher prefix could be:

978-new addition to isbn numbers (means nothing)
1-country
last digit is a check digit

So the publisher prefix could be:

6031287
603128
60312
6031

dependent on the size of the isbn block they have. Does that make sense? For example if you bought a ten-isbn block you would have 6031287. If you bought one hundred, or a thousand, or ten thousand . . .

That's how I understand it, in any case.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

The site you linked to used to insert dashes into a string of numbers until a few weeks ago. Once again a site has been improved to make it less useful to me...

[oldcharliebrown.livejournal.com]

I imagine the government shut-down has knocked a few things down, including this tool: http://pcn.loc.gov/isbncnvt.html

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

D'oh! That was my back-up site but I didn't connect it not working today with the .gov in its name. Damn it, Boner.

THE SHUTDOWN HAS AFFECTED ME PERSONALLY! ME! THIS IS WORSE THAN I IMAGINED IT COULD BE!

(actually, taking cancer meds away from sick kids is arguably worse than inconveniencing me slightly)

[dbdatvic.livejournal.com]

{reverb} MUA HA HAAAAAA!! {/reverb}

--Dave, we are Representatives of Borg. You will be discriminated against.

[doc-lemming.livejournal.com]

I was going to give you that address (http://www.isbn.org/ISBN_converter) but it looks like it converts 13 digits ISBNs into 10 digit ones and vice versa...that's certainly what it did with your sample. You can use it twice: Once to convert to ISBN 10, and once back. I got 978-1-60312-876-6 from your example.

[doc-lemming.livejournal.com]

Oh: This site (http://www.barcoderobot.com/isbn-13/9781603128001/) is for generating bar codes from ISBN numbers, but by happy accident it looks like the generated image has the dashes in the right place. No guarantees.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

its a government conspiracy meant to stymie you.

I sometimes look stuff up at www.Powells.com and click details when I am searching for a good ISBN, but with older books, that didnt have them to begin with, they make them up (they start like 11122...) or I would look up through the Library of Congress.. but thats shut down for now.

[sanskritabelt.livejournal.com]

Depending on the medium, I'd start with a ballpoint pen.