On 12/09/2007, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Just for information...
Is it still the case that ISBN:s automatically link to some "thingy" that
enables one to order the volume from Amazon (and/or perhaps some
other book supplier on the web) ?
Yes. It goes direct to a page listing a few hundred links, which are
automatic links into Amazon (and some of their less well-known
competitors) and an absurdly large number of deeplinks into library
catalogues.
If anyone feels really public-spirited (for the world in general, not
just WP), consider writing a patch to Special:Booksources to somehow
do on-the-fly integration with xISBN and similar other-editions tools;
this would be *incredibly* useful, and would make that page a vital
resource rather than a curiosity.
(ISBNs refer to a specific edition or, sometimes, a specific printing;
a given work usually has two, often four or six, sometimes literally
hundreds or thousands. You can see why the crossreferencing would make
this oh so much better)
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk