Are you ready for the ISBN-13 transition?

Are You Ready for ISBN-13?

LIBRARIES

The Period of Transition

Table of Contents

For the ISBN-13 transition period (January 2005 to January 2007), publishers are being encouraged to supply both an ISBN-10 and an ISBN-13 for the same manifestation of a title.

In response to the desire of publishers to begin supplying ISBN-13s prior to 2005 for inclusion in Cataloging in Publication (CIP) data for books published during the transition period and beyond, the Library of Congress, after consulting with some of the largest users of the MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data, began accommodating ISBN-13 on October 1, 2004.

Beginning January 1, 2007 publishers will supply only ISBN-13.

Pre-2007 Implementation (Oct 1, 2004 thru Jan 1, 2007)

Prior to October 1, 2004, no 13-digit ISBNs will be added to bibliographic records issued by the Library of Congress, either through the CIP Program or the Preassigned Control Number Program (PCN), whether occurring in records used for copy cataloging, or whether printed in a book.

Beginning October 1, 2004, LC began accepting an ISBN-13 and an ISBN-10 for the same title manifestation, whether through the CIP Program, the PCN Program, whether occurring in records used for copy cataloging, or whether printed in a book.

For CIP records created prior to October 1, 2004, the Cataloging in Publication Division will entertain the standard pre-publication change requests to 10-digit ISBNs. It will not, however, accept requests to add ISBN-13s to records created prior to that time. Publishers are encouraged to add such numbers in the CIP data they print in their books. The guidelines for doing so call for grouping the pairs of numbers by manifestation, giving the ISBN-13 first with each number preceded by a print constant as follows:

ISBN-13: 978-1-873671-00-0
ISBN-10: 1-873671-008

Note that in cases of multiple pairs, these same guidelines call for the pairs to be printed on separate lines down the page one pair after the other. This is in contrast to the style used in CIP data (printed across the page as part of a single paragraph, each instance of an ISBN separated by a space-dash-space), which is designed to meet publishers' concerns to conserve space. At the time the bibliographic record is updated to reflect the actual book, LC staff will add any ISBN-13 printed in the book.

For CIP and other bibliographic records created after October 1, 2004 and before January 1, 2007, LC will group pairs of ISBN-13 and ISBN-10 by manifestation in repeated MARC 21 020 fields, with the ISBN-13 input preceding the ISBN-10, each number qualified as appropriate. The pair related to the manifestation represented by the bibliographic record will be given first.

Although all ISBN pairs provided by publishers will be input into the bibliographic record, because of space concerns, no more than two pairs will be printed in the CIP data supplied to publishers to be printed in the book on the verso of the title page. This limitation is needed because of space concerns, since the CIP Division has agreed temporarily to follow the style for printing ISBN pairs recommended by the IIA. To indicate that additional ISBN pairs are in the bibliographic record beyond those provided in the printed CIP data, "[etc.]" will be printed on the line under the last printed ISBN.

For records that do not contain one or more pairs of ISBN-13 and ISBN-10, the CIP data supplied to publishers to be printed in the book will continue to reflect the current style, i.e., printed across the page as part of a single paragraph, each instance of an ISBN separated by a space-dash-space.

Full Implementation (Beginning Jan 1, 2007)

Upon full implementation of ISBN-13, LC anticipates that publishers will supply only an ISBN-13 for each manifestation and that the style for printing multiple instances will revert to the current CIP style, i.e., printed across the page as part of a single paragraph, each instance separated by space-dash-space and with the current print constant "ISBN" preceding each instance.

Some Strategies

Inventory
After locating relevant information, the library needs to inventory every app, applet or piece of code that may or may not use an ISBN. One suggestion would be to create a committee that goes over every one of their processes to ferret out everything that is being used. For instance, it would be very easy to overlook a once-a-year program, such as an old DOS ordering program used only at the end of the fiscal year because of some features in it.

Ask questions and track performance

After inventorying all of their apps, libraries need to talk to software vendors (or internal IT staff for home-grown apps) to find out

IF they plan on upgrading it, and
WHEN they expect to be done (will the vendor upgrade an old DOS program that very few people use?).
HOW the system will work when upgraded?

For instance, lets say a library has 4 or 5 copies of Harry Potter #12 and one gets damaged. They have a bib record and item records from 2006 with 10 digit numbers but now it is 2007. In some ILS's you can create an order line from an existing bibliographic record. Will the ILS system be smart enough to fill in the PO line item with an ISBN-13? When the item is delivered and you need to add an item record with the new barcode, will you still be able to link this ISBN-13 item record with the ISBN-10 bib record? If a patron searches the OPAC using the ISBN-10, will the ISBN-13 item be displayed?

Find alternatives

The faster libraries determine what will not be upgraded, the sooner they can start planning to migrate to something else. Considering that some of these things will have to go through the budget process, time is of the essence.

Do you have questions not answered by the information on this page?

Please contact isbn-13@bisg.org.