[amelius]

Why not use UUIDs?

People never enter ISBNs manually, anyways. So it might as well be longer string. Or a QR code.

[dwringer]

As someone who's worked in the field of used books, I can say from personal experience that's not quite true. It's pretty common to have to type in an ISBN for a variety of reasons. Many times the barcodes have been covered up or defaced, and many publications don't have barcodes in the first place.

[amelius]

It was true, for sure. But the question is, is it still true?

[bambax]

Schools often ask for a specific edition of a classic book and the only way to be reasonably sure you're buying the correct one is to search by ISBN.

[amelius]

Well, just copy and paste from the email you got from school.

I mean, if IT can do anything, it is to solve this problem.

[greenie_beans]

same

[sevenseventen]

The point is not just to have universally unique identifiers, but to collect common metadata that's associated with the identifiers. Like this:

https://www.bowker.com/siteassets/files/pdf-files/datasubmis...

Since this is the second time I've mentioned Bowker, let me just say that I do not and have never worked for them or with them, although I did meet with their reps several times when I worked in a different part of digital publishing. It's just that they're inescapable when you're talking about ISBNs.

[layer8]

ISBNs contain a check digit, to prevent typos. So you’d have to invent a new format.