• Collections & Technical Services
• November 2006
• Issue: 207

OCLC Support for ISBN 13 - Technical Bulletin 253

A new international standard is expanding the current 10-digit ISBN to a 13-digit ISBN. The new ISBN consists of 13 digits: the 3-digit prefix that identifies the book industry (currently 978), followed by the core 9-digit number and the recalculated check digit that validates the internal integrity of the whole number. While the official date for moving to this new standard is January 1, 2007, some publishers have begun printing both the current 10-digit and the new 13-digit ISBNs.

The Library of Congress began recording ISBN-13 numbers in LC records on October 1, 2004.

Implementation by OCLC is scheduled for mid-November 2006 and is described in Technical Bulletin 253: ISBN and OCLC Number Changes, available at: http://www.oclc.org/support/documentation/worldcat/tb/253/default.htm .

OCLC adopted an interim support policy for ISBN-13 numbers in WorldCat, which remains in effect until OCLC has completed implementation of ISBN-13. It consists of the following:

Records loaded into WorldCat from the Library of Congress and other partners:

• OCLC will convert a 13-digit number appearing in field 020 subfield $a to an EAN (field 024, first indicator ‘3’).
• If the record contains a 13-digit ISBN without a corresponding 10-digit ISBN, OCLC will convert a 13-digit ISBN beginning with 978 to a 10-digit ISBN, modifying the check digit along the way, as well as convert to an EAN as indicated above.

Online input:

• For original records, OCLC libraries were to input ISBN-13 numbers into an EAN field (024, first indicator '3') rather than inputting into the ISBN field (020).

Searching:

You can search for 13 digit ISBNs during this interim period under the index sn: for "standard number," for example: sn:9783540393689.

After OCLC completes implementation, support for the ISBN-13 numbers in the 020 field for Batchload, online input and searching will be available.

In the future:

All 10-digit ISBNs will be converted to 13-digit ones and both forms stored and indexed in WorldCat records.

13-digit ISBNs in field 024 (EAN) will be converted to field 020 and both forms (10-digit and 13-digit) will be stored and indexed in WorldCat records

See Technical Bulletin 253 for more information: http://www.oclc.org/support/documentation/worldcat/tb/253/default.htm .