Hello:

I am looking for a site (link) where I can download ISBNs.  I've been
to the logical place (isbn.org), but couldn't find a place to get the
numbers.  Any help will be greatly appreciated.

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Request for Question Clarification by hummer-ga on 16 Nov 2002 10:37 PST

Hi respree,

Are you trying to get the ISBN numbers for specific titles? Perhaps
the book was never issued one. Check the copyright date - ISBNs first
began in the UK in 1967 and in the US in 1968 - anything published
previous to that will not have ISBNs. If your books are later, than
try this site:

http://www.addall.com/
Type in the title (or author), tick off "Search by Title (or author)"
and the information that will be returned will include the ISBN if
there is one.

Another good link for finding book information is the OCLC (Online
Computer Library Center). Go to:
http://www.abebooks.com
Search for a nonsense title (kgolfppe). It will bring up zero results,
but click on the link: "Find it at a local library". Once there, you
can search the OCLC. If you receive the message "Access Denied", just
register with Abebooks and try again.

Here is a link with a good explanation of what ISBN numbers are:
http://www.ams.org/new-in-math/cover/barcodes5.html


Additional Links:

International ISBN Agency: Prefix Ranges: 
http://www.isbn.spk-berlin.de/html/prefix.htm

International ISBN Agency: The ISBN Users' Manual:
http://www.isbn.spk-berlin.de/html/userman.htm


Search Strategy
://www.google.ca/search?as_q=&num=100&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=isbn+numbers&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&safe=images

Terms Used:
"isbn numbers"

If I've misunderstood your question, please let me know and I'll try
again. If I've understood your question but you're still having
trouble, perhaps you'd like to post the titles and I'll see if I can
help you. If all is well and I've provided you with the answer you
need, let me know and I'll post this as an "answer".

Sincerely,
hummer

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Request for Question Clarification by lot-ga on 16 Nov 2002 11:01 PST

Hello
Do you want an ISBN number assigned to your new product,
and maybe the bar code for it generated too?
regards
lot-ga

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Clarification of Question by respree-ga on 16 Nov 2002 11:44 PST

Sorry researchers if I wasn't clear.  Let me explain.  I am a merchant
at Amazon.com zShops, which sells books.  They have a program called
'cross-linking' whereby I can link my product to certain of their
products (books).

For example, if I offer an art print of "Da Vinci's Mona Lisa," I want
the ISBN's of all books related to Leonardo Da Vinci.  I have about
50K products that I want to cross link to their products.  I could
manually look them up, by searching for "Da Vinci" in the books
department, but it would take me about a 100 years to find them all.

Therefore, I was hoping to find a source where I could download all
ISBN's (I guess for everybook ever assigned an ISBN) and
programatically match them up, perhaps through a program like Access.

Please let me know if further clarification is needed.  Thanks in
advance.

Have a look at isbntools.com and see if it fits the bill.  I've
extracted a Q&A from their site:

Where can I get an ISBN database?

If you need an ISBN database, you have the choice of buying one or
collecting free data. Because most book data is available for free,
there's not a big market for ISBN databases. Nonetheless you can
subscribe to books-in-print data services from Library of Congress
(recommended), Muse (recommended, but expensive), Baker&Taylor and
Ingram. Most people asking this question are interested in free data,
which unfortunately means they need to know about "MARC records" and
"Z39.50". MARC records are how libraries add book data to their
catalogs, and Z39.50 is a protocol (like http) used to request and
deliver MARC records. Luckily, you don't need to know much more than
that. Endnote, from ISIResearchSoft is software that can connect to
libraries using Z39.50 to download book data. You can also use it with
MSWord to automate the production of reference lists. You should be
able to get all the ISBN data that you need with EndNote. (There's
also a version for Mac)