ITPEC IP October 2023 Question 73

ISBN — the International Standard Book Number, defined by ISO 2108, identifies a book.

Each edition and format of a book gets its own 13-digit ISBN: the prefix 978 or 979, a registration group (language or country), a publisher, a title and a check digit. Publishers, booksellers and libraries use it to order and catalogue books worldwide. On the cover it is printed as an EAN bar code, so a point-of-sale scanner can read it like any product code.

Answer (b)

Why not others:

• •(a) EAN — the European (International) Article Number, a bar code that identifies retail products and their makers; it can carry an ISBN but is not a book code itself
• •(c) ITF — Interleaved Two of Five, a bar code printed on shipping cartons to identify the packed goods in distribution
• •(d) UPC — the Universal Product Code, the retail product bar code used in the USA and Canada

Key rule: ISBN identifies books, ISSN serials, EAN/JAN and UPC retail products, ITF shipping cartons.

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