ISBN numbers (was, Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Wikipedia funds)
Magnus Manske
magnus.manske at web.de
Wed Jan 21 08:19:14 UTC 2004
Delirium wrote:
> To sidestep the issue of partnering with booksellers for a bit, I have
> a more fundamental question: why do we have ISBN links at all? ISBN
> numbers do not identify books; they identify particular printings of
> books by particular publishers. Our job, as an encyclopedia, is to
> discuss the books themselves; if the reader wishes to find which
> publishers have the book currently in print in his or her country, I
> don't see that as our role (there are plenty of places to look that
> up, or ask your local bookstore). Not to mention that with the vast
> majority of books we'd be interested in documenting in an
> encyclopedia, there are dozens (sometimes hundreds!) of ISBN numbers
> under which the book has been published. Are we going to end every
> article on books with a lengthy list of ISBN numbers? Or are we going
> to arbitrarily pick one from our favorite publisher? I'd propose we
> instead just leave them out entirely.
We had this discussion a long (long, long) time ago, and AFAIR we came
up with this
* There's no (useful) standard to identify an "abstract" book (in
contrast to the "concrete" print)
* Giving *one* print of a book is better than none
* Some (many?) online book sellers list other prints of that book
* Many books (e.g, novels) come as hardcover and paperback, so just link
to the (cheaper) paperback
Someone ought to dig through the mailing list archives in case I
forgot/altered some of the above, though :-)
Magnus
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