ISBN fixing effort
editThis work is inspired by Rich Farmbrough's system for finding errors, using SmackBot. The current list of articles with one or more ISBNs needing fixing can be found at: Category:Articles with invalid ISBNs. Discussion of ISBN issues can be found at Category talk:Articles with invalid ISBNs. Much can also be learned by watching Rich's talk page during periods when SmackBot is doing ISBN corrections, because you can see complaints (or requests for advice) come rolling in, and in that way find out what the issues are. There is also a Wikipedia:List of pages with Invalid ISBNs, which was mechanically created in August, 2006 but is constantly edited as problems are fixed. You can also learn something from the ISBN page and Wikipedia:ISBN.
As of 5 January 2007, the number of known invalid ISBNs in Wikipedia stood at 2341.
Some editors who have helped reduce the list of invalid ISBNs in the last few months:
Please add your name to the list if you have been active recently. Regular editors of articles also fix their ISBNs in many cases. There is also an effort to fix invalid International Standard Serial Numbers in which User:Jayvdb, User:Rich Farmbrough and User:EdJohnston have participated, and most likely others. However there are relatively few ISSN numbers used in Wikipedia. Adding ISSNs to references is not universally favored.
Related Templates
edit- {{Please check ISBN}}, a template applied by SmackBot to identify invalid ISBNs.
- Normally the template is removed if and when the ISBN is fixed. In cases where the book seems to be published invalid, the editor who removes the bad ISBN will remove this template as well, so as to get the page out of Category:Articles with invalid ISBNs
- {{OCLC}} very useful and also bibliographically legitimate. Code stands for the Online Computer Library Center.
- {{ASIN}} can be used when none of the above are available (Amazon Standard Identification Number)
- {{LCCN}} as a last resort (US Library of Congress Control Number).
- Note that searching the Library of Congress online catalog for a pre-1960 LCCN may return nothing, even though the number was actually issued. This means that such an LCCN can't be relied on to return any bibliographic information to WP readers.
We are not trying to be US-centric; these are major bibliographic numbers that are widely used and documented for English-language books. Please suggest others if you know of any. Books published since 1970 in any language are expected to have ISBNs and often have OCLC numbers as well.