Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site brl-tgr.ARPA Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!brl-tgr!wmartin From: wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) Newsgroups: net.books Subject: ISBN Numbers - interpretation? Message-ID: <5236@brl-tgr.ARPA> Date: Fri, 12-Oct-84 11:49:30 EDT Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.5236 Posted: Fri Oct 12 11:49:30 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 13-Oct-84 08:48:43 EDT Organization: Ballistics Research Lab Lines: 18 Does anyone know if the ISBN numbers assigned to books have some coded meaning or interpretation, other than something trivial like "publisher" and "sequence number" or something equally boring? I'm guessing that, in a number like "0-89141-161-5", the "89141" refers to the publisher (because, in the publisher's book catalog in front of me that I am using for an example, all the books have that number). But would the "161" just mean "the 161th book issued by publisher #89141"? And what about the preceeding "0" and trailing "5"? I was hoping to find some sort of coding that would define types of books, like "all cookbooks have a number ending in 3" or something like that. Curious, Will Martin seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin or wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA