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

[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.