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ISBN Lookup

The need for a simple referencing system to classify, categorize and collate all the books and publications ever published was always felt.






Have you ever searched for a particular book, tape or digital record online?

If you have, then you have probably used the ISBN lookup to locate it quickly and effortlessly.

The what you ask?

Well, the ISBN lookup is nothing but the International standard book numbering system search that you would in all probability have used to find the book or publication you were searching for.

But have you ever wondered how all the books came to have this ISBN number in the first place? I mean, each country in the world publishes thousands of titles in a single week.

And these combined billions of books, publications, and with the advent of the Internet, digital media need to be indexed, referenced and made searchable using something as simple as an ISBN lookup.

How is this even practically possible? And, more importantly, who is responsible for this humungous task?

The answer to this question may be found in the annals of history.

The need for a simple referencing system to classify, categorize and collate all the books and publications ever published was always felt.

While library services cataloging helped people do this in a limited fashion, it was restrictive in the fact that the assets had to be present locally in order for them to be indexed.

But when things started going online in a big way, the local classification proved to be efficient no more.

A more consolidated way of classifying things had to be worked out.

And this is where the ISBN lookup took birth.

The question of the need for and feasibility this kind of a classification system for books and publications was first discussed at the Third International Conference on Book Market Research and Rationalisation in the Book Trade, held in November 1966 in the city of Berlin.

At that time, a number of European publishers and book distributors were considering the use of information technology for regular activities like order processing and inventory control.

It was evident to this collective that in order to have an efficient automated system, a consistent numbering system (or the ISBN lookup as we know it now!) was necessary.

This is how the simple yet effective ISBN lookup was born.

In the US, one R R Bowker is credited with being the first person to use and establish it while J.

Whitaker & Sons, Ltd., a firm of book publishers was the first to adopt it in the year 1967.


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