The simple answer is that they are incredibly useful, and that they
are convenient. If there were some other number which uniquely
identified books, rather than particular printings of books, I would
support using those instead.
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.
-Mark
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