How does the ISBN system on books work???

Who came up with it?? What do all the numbers stand for ?? Whgy is there sometimes an X at the end??|||look the website|||The ISBN number is almost like a social security number for the book...if you have that, you actually needn't even bother with the title, just make sure that you have the number right. It is all in the Library of Congress.


I still do not know why morepeople do not know this....however it is grat when ordering a book from a bookstore!!!!!!! It is like a barcode that instantly identifies the book!!! Cool huh?|||Take this ISBN number: 0-06-623850-1





The first number is the group identifier number.





The second number is the publisher identifier number.





The third number is the title identifier number.





The last number is a check digit.|||If you ever go to Barnes and Noble or some other bookstore and ask them to mail order a book for you, it makes it SO MUCH EASIER if you already know the ISBN # of the book. You can give the store clerk the title of the book you want to be mail ordered, but there might be 8 other books with the same title. Or you might have the title and the author right, but they might accidently order the large print edition, or the abridged edition, or the book-on-tape, etc. The ISBN will get you exactly what you want...that is if you know what you want exactly.|||ISBN stands for the 'International Standard Book Number'. This is the number that the cover, pages and story are registered under in the publishing world.


This is the number that is used in when the book is ordered, or reprinted for distribution to the world.