On 7/17/12 2:29 AM, Jens Østergaard Petersen wrote:

>
> Since the publisher codes are not freely available, it would be
> difficult to require the use of any of the hyphenated formats,
> however "meaningful" they may be to librarians and book sellers.
> Without a freely available list of publisher codes, I don't think
> everyone would be in a position to parse a format like "123456789X" -
> <http://pcn.loc.gov/isbncnvt.html> e.g. cannot hyphenate all ISBNs.

In response to a recent blog post of mine on ISBNs, Joe Montibello 
pointed out that there is a "re-hyphenating" algorithm for ISBNs:

http://waltshiel.com/2008/06/22/isbn-how-to-decode-it/

Not that I think that hyphenated ISBNs are the way to go.

While I don't expect catalogers to "algorithmically" re-format ISBNs, I 
do think that there should be a standard ISBN format for data exchange 
and linking. This could surely be derived from what the cataloger 
inputs, and should be done by the cataloging software.

kc

>
> The identifier type attribute could be standardised, but whether a
> 10- or 13-digit format is used can be determined automatically, so
> would not this just mean extra work on the part of the cataloguer?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Jens
>
> PS: In <identifier> I think we see an example of the over-use of
> language attributes in MODS. What meaning is there in requiring a
> full MODS implementation to allow users to specify language, script
> and transliteration for values that are meant to distinctively
> identify a resource universally?
>
> On Jul 14, 2012, at 5:25 PM, Saašha Metsärantala wrote:
>
>> Hello!
>>
>> The MODS schema is very permissive and validates idioms such as (I
>> removed the greater-than and less-than characters to avoid
>> possible misinterpretations by some mail-software)
>>
>> identifier type="isbn" 123-456-789-101-2
>>
>> identifier type="isbn 13" urn:isbn:123-456-789-101-2
>>
>> identifier type="isbn10" 123456789X
>>
>> identifier type="ISBN_13" URN:ISBN:123-456-789-101-2
>>
>> identifier type="isbn-10" 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-x
>>
>> and much more. The MODS guidelines at
>> http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-userguide-elements.html#identifier
>>
>>
state that:
>>
>>> There is no controlled list of identifier types. Suggested values
>>> include [...] isbn
>>
>> This does not specify anything about the different ways to write an
>> ISBN (10 vs. 13, etc.) and I wonder whether the value of the @type
>> attribute is subject to any "common practice" to improve the
>> consistency and portability issues created by the permissiveness of
>> the MODS xsd schema.
>>
>> Regards!
>>
>> Saašha,
>

-- 
Karen Coyle
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