ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number, i.e. International Standard Book Number. ISBN is a unique, machine-readable identification number that uniquely identifies a book. The book number began to be used from 1966, first as a 9-digit book code (SBN) published in Britain, and from 1970 it was extended to 10 digits and became international.
Valid symbols: |
0123456789 |
Length: |
Not variable, 10 symbols |
Check digit: |
One |
The ISBN, assigned to books until 2006 contained 10 digits length and consist of four fields of variable length:
For a 13 digit ISBN, a GS1 prefix: 978 or 979.
The group identifier, (language-sharing country group).
The publisher code.
The item number.
A checksum character or check digit.
An "ISBN-10" barcode.
Information |
The 'human readable' digits at the foot which can be used by operators if the label becomes damaged or will not scan for some reason - "80-902734-1-6" is the number encoded in the barcode.
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