Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with ISBN

Author, Date, ISBN?

strixus — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:40:15 -0800

A question for those who know far more than I do about citation formats: why do none of them include ISBN numbers? So, in working on a large project, and fighting with EndNote the entire time, I found the fastest way to keep track of books, especially when using multiple editions, was to reference them by ISBN-10 (13 works well too, but 10 seemed easier) numbers. EndNote's database will record these, happily, for all works that take them.

But then I got to thinking (rather than writing, like I should have been) - why do no modern citation formats use ISBN for referencing texts that have them? I understand they wouldn't be useful for items without ISBN numbers, but those require different citation formats anyway. Why not exclude publisher, city, and year, in favor of an ISBN? Or along side one?

So, I suppose what I am asking is the following: why ISBN's are not used as a reference point for citation in modern citation formats?

How can I scan book barcodes and sell them online?

JFitzpatrick — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:22:18 -0800

I have a USB hand held barcode scanner and I have an enormous pile of books I need to scan into some sort of usable database for sale online. What software would be most useful and where would you recommend selling them online? I'm using Windows XP Pro.

Programming neophyte looking for a language to start with. Or, what language should I learn to complete these tasks?

monkishies — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 08:24:00 -0800

What programming language should a neophyte start with to organize his life? Yes, another one of those questions. But I have two specific tasks that I'd like to accomplish and this makes choosing a language really hard for me. Especially since i'm a complete n00bler. I'm a complete virgin to programming other than the little bit of BASIC that was taught to me in High School ages ago. But I REALLY want to learn a programming language. One that I can use as a foundation but more importantly a tool for doing things on/to/with my internet connected PC.

I have two specific tasks that I'd like to start out with for my first programs that I believe will be simple enough for a beginner like me.

1. Organize my horribly disorganized library
---Read through a folder filled with books in .pdf/.chm/.djvu format
---rename the files with their isbn number (queried from somewhere like amazon)
---fill in the "title","subject","author","category","keywords", and "comments" sections under right click on file Properties->Summary (also queried from amazon or the like)
---compress the file
---create a subject/category folder and place the compressed file there

2. Organize ~20mb worth of bookmarks (in multiple .html files)
---Check for duplicate bookmarks in this collection of .html files
----Use the pages content to scrape tag words then input them in the right click on bookmark Properties->"keyword" section and if possible also fill in the "description" area. Delicious to me would be a last resort as it's become a mess with people using tags that often look like gibberish and probably only make sense to their user and/or their own piece of code.

It'd also be nice for these apps to be cross platform (Windows and Linux) but that's an afterthought really.

Now, I know this might sound like a tall order for a complete neophyte but I believe the first program that I've outlined above could be easy enough to complete for someone like me.

So, what should it be? Perl, Python, C, C++, something else? Maybe someone out there knows of a *free ware/beggar ware/Open Source* program that does what I desperately need to get done? Please impart your collective wisdom unto me, AskMeFi! I beg you!

ISBN to cover photo

cosmicbandito — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:29:17 -0800

How to turn a list of ISBNs into a folder of JPEG photos of those book covers? I want to use photos of books in my library as a screen saver/ advertisement. I want to do this using the ISBNs. Is there an online tool that will take a list of ISBNs, pull the appropriate cover images from Amazon or another service, and dump them into a folder for me? I'm looking for functionality similar to Shelfari's bookshelf, but with JPEG output.

Submitting a new book and ISBN

PoopyDoop — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:17:28 -0800

What websites and databases might an author submit their new book and ISBN number (other than google)?

1. ISBN 2. Web Service 3. ??? 4. Profit

basicchannel — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 13:50:32 -0800

I need to know which book-related web service/API is best (most complete archive, most up-to-date, most metadata) for looking up information about books given an ISBN-10 or ISBN-13. I am writing a web-based application in which users (universities) enter the books in their collections into a database. To aid in data entry I am simply asking they input the ISBN-10 or ISBN-13 number and will use a web service/API to fill in the remaining details, if possible. So far I've investigated: Library of Congress, WorldCat, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Louis (APH), Google ISBN, facultycenter.net, Campusi, and Book Collector.

Which (of the listed or omitted), o' wise MeFites, in your experience is best for such a task?

How does a publisher get Library of Congress information to include in a book?

RossWhite — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 10:33:47 -0800

I'm publishing a book. How do I go about getting Library of Congress information to include behind the title page? I already have an ISBN for the book, but don't know what information I would need to supply to the Library of Congress, nor do I know how I would go about submitting that information to the LOC.

Apologies if this question has been asked before, I may be searching on the wrong terms since "information" is pretty generic.

How do I de-register an ISBN?

Fuzzy Monster — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 06:34:19 -0800

A book I wrote was going to get published but then the publisher went out of business. Before they went under the publisher assigned my book an ISBN, so the never-published book still appears in various databases. How do I de-register the ISBN and remove it from the web?

People scanning books with their PDAs, what's going on?!

cowmix — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 20:53:41 -0800

I was at a massive used booksale in Phoenix, Arizona today. I saw at least ten 20-something people with Treos and/or PocketPCs with barcode scanners scanning in tons of books.. it looked like they were doing real-time queries to some server getting book values and stuff like that. Who / what / where is going on? Is this a massive business or is this a new fad that young punks to now ... or what?

Help me find this out-of-print book, The Ponderous Pseudonumer [ISBN 82-994200-4-0], by Dr. Allan Krill, or help me find an equivalent book.

sdis — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 21:25:40 -0800

Help me find this out-of-print book, The Ponderous Pseudonumer [ISBN 82-994200-4-0], by Dr. Allan Krill, or help me find an equivalent book. I'm looking for this book, which is a list of word - number equivalents in the mnemonic system known as the "Major" or "Phonetic" system. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic_major_system). The book lists words that will correspond to the numbers 0-99999 based upon their consonant sounds (for example, 'jacket' = j/ch, k, t/d = 671). It's easy to decode words into numbers, but more difficult to encode the numbers (401 = r, s/z, t/d = rast? rizod?). A book compiling words in numerical order helps figure out that 401 could be encoded as 'roast'. I'm aware of only one author, this Dr. Krill guy, has taken the time to write out all of these.

The book is listed on this website: http://soundnumbers.com/13.htm
It went out of print in 2002, and a replacement book was supposed to be published in 2003, but apparently that fell through. I can't seem to find the book anywhere. He seems to have a few other books, any of which would also be helpful, though not as helpful as the big one. They are listed here:
http://soundnumbers.com/30.htm

Finding First Editions

kaibutsu — Fri, 12 Mar 2004 20:14:15 -0800

BookNerdFilter: Is there a way to tell the printing and edition of a book given just the ISBN? There's abook I'm thinking of ordering, and I'm much more likely to do it if it's a first edition/ printing...