ISBN numbers (was, Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia funds)

Wed Jan 21 08:19:14 UTC 2004

Delirium wrote:

> To sidestep the issue of partnering with booksellers for a bit, I have 
> a more fundamental question: why do we have ISBN links at all?  ISBN 
> numbers do not identify books; they identify particular printings of 
> books by particular publishers.  Our job, as an encyclopedia, is to 
> discuss the books themselves; if the reader wishes to find which 
> publishers have the book currently in print in his or her country, I 
> don't see that as our role (there are plenty of places to look that 
> up, or ask your local bookstore).  Not to mention that with the vast 
> majority of books we'd be interested in documenting in an 
> encyclopedia, there are dozens (sometimes hundreds!) of ISBN numbers 
> under which the book has been published.  Are we going to end every 
> article on books with a lengthy list of ISBN numbers?  Or are we going 
> to arbitrarily pick one from our favorite publisher?  I'd propose we 
> instead just leave them out entirely.

We had this discussion a long (long, long) time ago, and AFAIR we came 
up with this
* There's no (useful) standard to identify an "abstract" book (in 
contrast to the "concrete" print)
* Giving *one* print of a book is better than none
* Some (many?) online book sellers list other prints of that book
* Many books (e.g, novels) come as hardcover and paperback, so just link 
to the (cheaper) paperback

Someone ought to dig through the mailing list archives in case I 
forgot/altered some of the above, though :-)

Magnus