Ever wondered how search engines and online retailers organize their search results for books and book product pages? Simple, they use ISBNs to store book data and to retrieve it at a moment’s notice. They also track customer purchase behavior, inventory movement (sales and returns) and revenue with ISBNs. Though the number itself does not contain any information (making it safe to use electronically), the individual clusters of numbers provide clues about the origin of a book, etc.
Printed music, serial publications and the individual parts of publications (like articles) all have their own identifiers that offer a fast, reliable and permanent solution to retrieving product information. Below are some of the most important identifiers for printed music, journal and book publishing by acronym and full name.
- DOI: Digital Object Identifier
- EAN: International Article Number
- ISBN: International Standard Book Number
- ISMN: International Standard Music Number
- ISSN: International Standard Serial Number
The actual numbers that make up an identifier can be written with dashes or spaces, which are incorporated for better readability. Obtaining a unique identifier is free of charge. Note that all managing identifier agencies are non-profit organizations that strive towards the common goal to uniquely identify products and therefore enable easy exchange, storage and data retrieval worldwide.
Facts About the Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Note that the DOI is the digital identifier of any product, not just digital ones.
- Managing agency: International DOI Foundation (IDF); www.doi.org
- First launched: 2000
- Volume: 40 million assigned DOIs to date
- Users: 3,000 naming authorities, e.g. publishers and imprints
- Best known: CrossRef application
- Purpose: identifying intellectual property permanently on any digital network
- Example: 10.1000/0A920021223F3320 (book) or 10.1177/1077801208325096 (journal article)
Facts About the International Article Identifier (EAN)
The EAN (now called GTI) was created to enable easy processing of any physical product worldwide, including books. However, to capture the aspect of intellectual property, the ISBN, ISSN, ISMN and others existed separately so that both numbers needed to be printed on a product.
To simplify the identification process, the ISBN also became a 13-digit number and is now identical with the 13-digit EAN, reserving the leading digits 978 and 979 for ISBNs. The Universal Product Code (UPC; also managed by GS1) is included in the EAN identifier system. The UPC is simply prefixed with ‘0’and this range of EAN identifiers is reserved for UPCs.
- Managing agency: GS1; www.gs1.org/productssolutions/barcodes
- First launched: 1972
- Users: illustrators, photographers, artists
- Purpose: unique product identifier for standardized processing throughout the supply chain
- Example: 9-401234-567894
The International Standard Book Number (ISBN)
As a unique identifier specifically for books and e-books, the ISBN is probably the best known identifier.
- Managing agency: national and international ISBN agencies; www.isbn.org
- First launched: 1967
- Purpose: unique book identifier that enables standardized processing for book distribution and bookselling worldwide and also point-of-sales data capture
- Example: 978-81-291-1372-6; 13 digits after Jan. 2007, 10 digits before that
Facts About the International Standard Music Number (ISMN)
The ISMN is a unique identifier for printed music only; therefore, it is not used for sound, audiotapes, CDs, video recordings or for books on music. For representation as an EAN, the ISMN prefix of ‘M’ is replaced by ‘979-0’ (reserved for printed music) and the check digit is recalculated.
- Managing agency: national and international ISMN agencies; www.ismn-international.org
- First launched: 1993
- Users: music publishers, composers, songwriters
- Purpose: unique identifier for all printed music worldwide that enables standardized processing for distribution and sale
- Example: M-66118-054-8; 13 digit as of Jan. 2008, before 10 digits
The International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
The ISSN is meant for serial publications with no predetermined end like journals, newspapers, magazines, yearbooks, proceedings of a meeting, etc. It does therefore not apply to web sites, blogs and web pages because they do not follow a predetermined, regular publication cycle. Note that the print and online version of the same serial publication would require two different ISSNs.
- Managing agency: national and international ISSN agencies; www.issn.org
- First launched: 1975
- Volume: more than 1,3 million records (2007)
- Users: societies, publishers
- Purpose: unique identifier for print or online serial publications that enables their standardized processing throughout the supply chain
- Example: 1077-8012 (print journal) or 1552-8448 (online journal)
An excellent resource for more information on these and other identifiers (yes, there are more!) is the Book Industry Study Group’s Roadmap of Identifiers, found on their web site.
