Answer: The introduction of the 13-digit ISBN is still a way off, but is already causing headaches for online book sellers and buyers. Some college bookstores have already converted existing books to the new system, which has prevented some students from shopping online for used books as an alternative to the college store.
The 10-digit ISBN has been used for three decades as a surefire way to uniquely identify books and their various editions. And after the launch of Amazon Marketplace and Half.com a few years ago, the ISBN has made online bookselling simple as pie -- only the 10-digit number must be entered, instead of the book's full title, author name, yada yada yada....
But the 10-digit numbering scheme is running out of space, forcing the mandatory change to the 13-digit system by 2007. An ever-higher number of books are being introduced each year, so the ISBN numbering system is nearly exhausted -- much like the proliferation of cellphones has already forced the introduction of additional area codes in some urban areas of the United States.
Next year, ISBNs will resemble the current numbers, with an added prefix of 978 or 979. Existing books with 10-digit ISBNs must be converted to the 13-digit format by adding one of the 3-digit prefixes and changing the last existing digit. A book industry trade group has published a free "Dummies" guide to ISBN conversion here: http://www.bisg.org/isbn-13/
For bookstores that need to convert their barcodes to the new format, more resources are provided by the U.S. ISBN Agency. On Amazon.com, most products are uniquely identified by an "ASIN" (Amazon Standard Identification Number), and in the case of most books, it's the same number as the ISBN.
It will be interesting to see how well the major online bookselling sites manage the transition to the 13-digit ISBN transition. Stay tuned.
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Steve Weber is author of "The Home-Based Bookstore: Start Your Own Business Selling Used Books on Amazon, eBay or Your Own Web Site" (ISBN 0977240606). Got a question for Steve? Send to: steve_weber@yahoo.com