Template:PublicationFields:ISBN

• ISBN / Catalog # - A field for identification numbers. It should hold the ISBN if the publication has one, otherwise it should hold the publication’s catalog number if available. Note that prior to 2007 all ISBNs were 10 digits long while around 2007 they were expanded to 13 digits. Some books printed around 2007 specified both the 10 digit and the 13 digit version of the ISBN. The ISFDB software supports both formats, so if two forms of ISBN are present, you can enter either one.
• If there is no ISBN specified (they were introduced in the late 1960s and became widespread by the mid-1970s), then enter the catalog ID provided by the publisher and prefix it with # as in #UQ1064.
  • You may enter the ISBN with or without hyphens. If the ISBN is valid then ISFDB will display it with hyphens. One exception to the enter-as-stated rule is ISBNs delimited with spaces instead of hyphens. The ISBN should be entered using hyphens.
  • You may also see an ISBN of the form "0-586-06604-7-275"; the last three digits after the last hyphen indicate a price, and are not part of the ISBN; they should not be entered.
  • In some cases you will see a nine digit SBN, without a leading zero (for English language publications); in this case you can add the leading zero and enter that number.
  • If you entered a value that was not exactly as stated in the publication, then please add a comment about this in the Note field.
  • For works that predate ISBNs, the book's catalog number/ID may be placed here. If the book had neither an ISBN nor a catalog number, the field should be left blank and a comment should be added to the notes field that a catalog number or other identification was not stated.
  • For magazines, it was at one time the practice of some ISFDB editors to enter the ISSN. However the ISSN does not identify a particular issue, but rather the magazine as a whole. Therefore the consensus is now that it should not be entered here, but rather on a magazine's wiki page. If a magazine does not have an issue-specific catalog number, leave this blank.
  • If a publication has more than one number, then enter the one that seems most reasonable in the ISBN field but then also add a comment to the notes field about the various numbers and where they are located in the publication. For example, a book may have both an ISBN and a catalog number. In this case the ISBN would go in the ISBN field and you would make a note, for example, that the ISBN is on the spine and catalog number is on the front cover.