"Bookland" is the informal name for the Unique Country Code (UCC) prefix allocated in the 1980s for European Article Number (EAN) identifiers of published

book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical ...

s, regardless of country of origin, so that the EAN

namespace In computing, a namespace is a set of signs (''names'') that are used to identify and refer to objects of various kinds. A namespace ensures that all of a given set of objects have unique names so that they can be easily identified. Namespaces ...

can catalogue books by

ISBN The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier that is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency. An ISBN is assigned to each separate edition a ...

rather than maintaining a redundant parallel numbering system. In other words, Bookland is a fictitious country that exists solely in EAN for the purposes of non-geographically cataloguing books in the otherwise geographically keyed EAN coding system.

History

Until January 1, 2007, all ISBNs were allocated as 9-digit numbers followed by a

modulo In computing, the modulo operation returns the remainder or signed remainder of a division, after one number is divided by another (called the '' modulus'' of the operation). Given two positive numbers and , modulo (often abbreviated as ) is ...

checksum A checksum is a small-sized block of data derived from another block of digital data for the purpose of detecting errors that may have been introduced during its transmission or storage. By themselves, checksums are often used to verify data ...

character that was either a decimal digit or the letter "X". A Bookland EAN was generated by concatenating the Bookland UCC 978, the 9 digits of the book's ISBN other than its checksum, and the EAN checksum digit. Since parts of the 10-character ISBN space are nearly full, all books published from 2007 on have been allocated a 13-digit

, which is identical to the Bookland EAN. Most of UCC 979 (formerly "Musicland") has now been assigned for the expansion of Bookland, and was first used by publishers in the French language, which can now use the additional prefix "979-10-" in addition to the nearly full "978-2-" prefix (onto which legacy 10-character ISBNs starting with "2-" have been remapped). Books numbered with prefixes other than 978 will not be mappable to 10-character ISBNs. The GS1 is the global identification standards organization for retail. Every country has an assigned country code which precedes the company code. The "country codes" 978 and 979 are now officially registered for allocation by the International ISBN Agency, which maintains the official international registry of ISBN numbers allocated to book publishers.

Similar mappings

ISSN An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication, such as a magazine. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSNs a ...

s (which identify

periodical publication A periodical literature (also called a periodical publication or simply a periodical) is a published work that appears in a new edition on a regular schedule. The most familiar example is a newspaper, but a magazine or a journal are also example ...

s) are mapped into the UCC 977. * ISMNs (which identify

sheet music Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of musical notation that uses musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chords of a song or instrumental musical piece. Like its analogs – printed books or pamphlets in English, ...

) are mapped into the UCC 979. Since the leading "M" of a legacy 10-digit ISMN number (such as M-345-24680-5) is transcoded as 0, the EAN prefix 979-0 is wholly reserved for sheet music and has been dubbed the fictitious country "Musicland". Like ISBNs, ISMNs have been officially allocated using 13 digits since mid-2008.

References

External links

Are you ready for ISBN-13?

Informational website which converts ISBN-10 to ISBN-13

US agency to obtain ISBN numbers

Book publishing International Standard Book Number Fictional countries {{publish-stub