Slashdot Mirror

You try and see what happens. Why would anyone make an effort to go someplace just to get kicked out?

It is not me making the claim, you know. The onus is on those who do.

Name the books for which you think that to be the case.

There is so many, and the practice is so common, that most publishers publish special catalogues for "upcoming books". The needs of librarians are such that there are even commercial enterprises who specialize in such information. Like this one. Note the words "forthcoming books" in the description.

That is what I thought when I read this, so I went searching the net. I found the ISBN U.S. Agency which is stewarded by Bowker. I do not see how any book store can own the copyright to the ISBN number when they have no control over it.

OK, here's the real truth about the big Amazon catalog. It's the ISBN catalog; they just borrowed that data and imported it into their database.

Whether or not we can agree on a successful business model in Anderson's predictions, the events he describes are indeed coming to pass. The market for content is dissolving.

Last year, according to R.R. Bowker http://www.bowker.com/press/2004_0527_bowker.htm, 175,000 book titles were published in the US alone. That's more than any other year in history, and it doesn't even include all the titles being published without ISBNs through outfits like Lulu http://www.lulu.com/, which gives authors the option to distribute directly. And yet, the same report notes that sales of books are down. Why? More content; less consolidated sales.

This is bad news for big publishers and for brick and mortar retailers, whose profits have always relied upon the 80/20 rule described in the Wired article. It's good news, on the other hand, for authors (and bands and game designers, etc.) who are hoping for a sliver of the marketplace that they might not otherwise have gotten.

Lulu, where I work, currently sees over 50 new titles published a day by authors hoping for the attention of a few readers. That number is growing all the time. Most of these authors won't sell very many books. But the money being spent on books by the book-buying public is being divided into many more slices.

"How am I going to get rich if I only sell 100 books?" complains a typical author.

Well, the truth is that getting rich as an author has always been a bit like winning the lottery. The world can support very few Stephen Kings. But it can support an almost infinite number of Cory Doctorows http://www.craphound.com/down/ or Tucker Maxes http://www.tuckermax.com/. The publishing world (and I include music) is more democratic, but it's also less glamorous.

If you have content-- and people will always be compelled to generate more content, for better or worse -- in the digital world it costs you nothing to put it out there and hang a price tag on it (Lulu and CafePress are good examples). If it's out there, and it's valuable to someone, eventually it will sell. The economics of that marketplace, on the other hand, are not those of the publishing industry as it now exists.

Online method: The library scans a book with the CueCat, the software does a lookup against the online databases, and returns the data to your own database. You get your answer in real time but each lookup takes time to execute. Also, you need to be connected to the net at the time so you can't walk around your stacks and scan right off the shelves.

Batch Method: The libary scans a whole load of books at once with the CueCat and the software makes a list of all the ISBN numbers. At the end of the night, the system hooks up to the online databases and does all it's lookups. By morning you have data on all the books you scanned in the previous day and you have not tied up your Internet connection while users are in the library. This would work well with an old laptop hooked to the CueCat scanner because then you have a portable bar code scanner.

There is a publication called "Books in Print" -- published annually IIRC in both print (takes several shelves of a bookcase) and CD-ROM formats.

It is intended to be a comprehensize reference of all books published, including ISBN. I'm unsure of the license fee...

Looking at http://www.bowker.com/ it seems there is also a "Books out of Print" too...

These are likely to be pricey, but probably exactly what you need/want.

Remember, kids: Google is your friend. Try there before you Ask Slashdot.

First, there's ISBN.nu. It's actually a really sweet portal/price comparison site, and it only searches ISBNs through the bookstores it's affiliated with (not all ISBNs in general), but it's a neat trick. :)

Now, following the "About ISBN" link takes you to R. R. Bowker, which is the agency that assigns ISBN numbers in the US (not in other countries! Other agencies do that!).

Now, since they assign the ISBN numbers, they'd be in a great position to produce the Books in Print and Books Out-of-Print series of reference books, wouldn't they? And, lo and behold, they do!

Bowker's Books in Print website allows you to search all the ISBN numbers of books currently in print -- for a fee. That's right, it's not free, although there is a free trial available. Annual subscription rates range from US$1850 for single site/single user/no reviews, to US$3375 for single site/multiple user/with reviews.

Bowker also has their Books Out-of-Print site online. It's also non-free, with single-user subscriptions ranging from US$29 for one week of unlimited searching to US$699 for one year of unlimited searching.

--Vito

Remember, kids: Google is your friend. Try there before you Ask Slashdot.

First, there's ISBN.nu. It's actually a really sweet portal/price comparison site, and it only searches ISBNs through the bookstores it's affiliated with (not all ISBNs in general), but it's a neat trick. :)

Now, following the "About ISBN" link takes you to R. R. Bowker, which is the agency that assigns ISBN numbers in the US (not in other countries! Other agencies do that!).

Now, since they assign the ISBN numbers, they'd be in a great position to produce the Books in Print and Books Out-of-Print series of reference books, wouldn't they? And, lo and behold, they do!

Bowker's Books in Print website allows you to search all the ISBN numbers of books currently in print -- for a fee. That's right, it's not free, although there is a free trial available. Annual subscription rates range from US$1850 for single site/single user/no reviews, to US$3375 for single site/multiple user/with reviews.

Bowker also has their Books Out-of-Print site online. It's also non-free, with single-user subscriptions ranging from US$29 for one week of unlimited searching to US$699 for one year of unlimited searching.

--Vito

Remember, kids: Google is your friend. Try there before you Ask Slashdot.

First, there's ISBN.nu. It's actually a really sweet portal/price comparison site, and it only searches ISBNs through the bookstores it's affiliated with (not all ISBNs in general), but it's a neat trick. :)

Now, following the "About ISBN" link takes you to R. R. Bowker, which is the agency that assigns ISBN numbers in the US (not in other countries! Other agencies do that!).

Now, since they assign the ISBN numbers, they'd be in a great position to produce the Books in Print and Books Out-of-Print series of reference books, wouldn't they? And, lo and behold, they do!

Bowker's Books in Print website allows you to search all the ISBN numbers of books currently in print -- for a fee. That's right, it's not free, although there is a free trial available. Annual subscription rates range from US$1850 for single site/single user/no reviews, to US$3375 for single site/multiple user/with reviews.

Bowker also has their Books Out-of-Print site online. It's also non-free, with single-user subscriptions ranging from US$29 for one week of unlimited searching to US$699 for one year of unlimited searching.

--Vito

Remember, kids: Google is your friend. Try there before you Ask Slashdot.

First, there's ISBN.nu. It's actually a really sweet portal/price comparison site, and it only searches ISBNs through the bookstores it's affiliated with (not all ISBNs in general), but it's a neat trick. :)

Now, following the "About ISBN" link takes you to R. R. Bowker, which is the agency that assigns ISBN numbers in the US (not in other countries! Other agencies do that!).

Now, since they assign the ISBN numbers, they'd be in a great position to produce the Books in Print and Books Out-of-Print series of reference books, wouldn't they? And, lo and behold, they do!

Bowker's Books in Print website allows you to search all the ISBN numbers of books currently in print -- for a fee. That's right, it's not free, although there is a free trial available. Annual subscription rates range from US$1850 for single site/single user/no reviews, to US$3375 for single site/multiple user/with reviews.

Bowker also has their Books Out-of-Print site online. It's also non-free, with single-user subscriptions ranging from US$29 for one week of unlimited searching to US$699 for one year of unlimited searching.

--Vito