Book basics
In your Groqit's "Books" category, you will be able to store
information by barcode, on books that have them. When the
information gets translated on this website, the Books category
(or books in any categories you create (such as "SCIENCE" or "ART")
will have new information besides the barcodes. Files sorted by
Author, Title, and ISBN, will be provided. You can look
up books by Author, for instance, and then a list of Titles under
that Author. If you prefer you can start your search under
Title; if there's more than one book in your collection with the
same title, you can narrow the search by Author, Date, or ISBN.
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What are all those numbers?
How a book is identified depends somewhat on when and how it was
published. Many books have no identifying numbers.
The four most common numbers are the EAN (European Article Number),
the ISBN (International Standard Book Number and earlier the Standard
Book Number), the UPC (Universal Product Code) and the Library
of Congress Catalog Number.
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EAN
Newer books should have an EAN (European Article Number). There
are two forms in common usage: the EAN (which is 13 digits long)and
the EAN + 5 (18 digits). In the latter case, the last 5 digits
code the price.
This is what EAN barcodes can look like:
The EAN is often on the inside of the front cover of a book.
The first section of any EAN barcode is the EAN. The first three
numbers are the country code. If the first three numbers are 978 or 979,
this tells us this item is from "Bookland," which is the imaginary
country that all Books come from. The next nine numbers are the
ISBN (International Standard Book Number) and a checksum. [More
on this later]. The second section of the barcode tells us the
price.
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ISBN
ISBN identification (International Standard Book Number) was implemented
in 1970. [The earlier Standard Book Number was used from 1966 to
1974]
ISBNs have 10 digits. This is an example of an ISBN: ISBN 0-812-50394-5
A 10-digit ISBN can be converted to an EAN by adding the "Bookland" prefix
978 and changing the last digit to the new checksum. (No old ISBN
translates to a 979 Bookland code. Also, a 979 EAN is the
ISBN, there is no ten digit version.
On some books, the ISBN will be coded with a two-height
barcode. Your Groqit cannot read this barcode type. (These
are extremely rare.)
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Price Point UPC
North American books also use the UPC (Universal Product Code)
system. Trade paper backs may use a UPC-A and an EAN. The EAN should
be scanned, as it is also the ISBN-13. For older paperbacks, if
there's a barcode, they use the Price Point UPC. The first section
is the UCC (Company Code), the last section is an item number.
Unfortunately, the price is smack in the middle! Which means, when
the price changes, the UPC changes. In technical terms this system
is "really stupid!" As of 1 January 2007 its use was discontinued,
but there are many books out there with this number.
You can recognize a Price Point UPC by that price-in-the-middle
feature.
This is what they look like:
If the only barcode on the book
is a Price Point UPC, scan it. Our subscription services will translate
this to the ISBN.
Be certain you get all 17 digits, because if
you only scan the large section you'll be missing the ISBN portion. An
easy way to check is to look at your Groqit's display. Each line
is 16 characters, so a correct scan will wrap one digit to the
second line.
If you see a Price Point UPC on the back of the book, check to
see if it has an EAN as well. (The EAN is often on the inside
of the front cover of a paperback book.) If it has both barcodes,
we strongly recommend entering the EAN.
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Odd Codes
Large retailers find it useful to create thier own inventory-tracking
systems, using barcodes that relate to numbers in their central
computer's data-base but not necessarily to the world outside.
They can print up stickers with a barcode font that their computer
understands, but no one else can.
If you like to purchase used books, there might be one of these
internal inventory barcodes on it. Your Groqit may or may not be
able to read an inventory tag, because there are many types of
barcodes and barcode fonts. The Groqit only understands the UPC/EAN
font.
In this case, the ISBN is on the tag. You can key it in manually.
(Leave out the hyphens, please.)
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Problem books
My book doesn't have
a barcode
Look on the back of the title
page for the ISBN. You can key the ISBN into your Groqit manually,
or as a Member, do it online. Please leave out the hyphens.
ISBN identification (International Standard Book Number) was implemented
in 1970. A 10-digit ISBN can be converted to an EAN by adding the "Bookland" prefix
978 and changing the last digit to the new checksum.
http://www.isbn.org/converterret.asp does
this for you.
If you want to understand more, go to http://www.isbn.org/standards/home/index.asp
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Library of Congress Catalog
Number
Older books may just have a LCCN. This doesn't
translate to a UPC, EAN or ISBN and although the Library of Congress
has an online database, it often only contains the number for
a book's first edition. The Groqit website can look up a LCCN
and if that book was assigned an EAN or ISBN,
load both numbers back into your Groqit.
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No numbers!
Look on the back of the title page for the
ISBN. You can key the ISBN into your Groqit manually, or as a
Member, do it online. Please leave out the hyphens. An SBN will
only have 8 digits. Add a zero in front and an X at the end,
please.
Another possible location for the ISBN or SBN is the spine.
 
The first image (0-441 20661-1 195) is an ISBN, the second (449-01453-075)
is an SBN. In the first case, please key in 0441206611. In the
second, add a zero in front and an X at the end: 044901453X (we
will calculate the checksum and replace the X). Leave out the hyphens
and the price (which is the last three digits in both cases).
Some older books
and "book club" books have no identifying numbers at all. All
we can offer is a chance to do a manual search for the book and
if any edition was ever assigned an ISBN or EAN, we can add that
to your barcode file. If not, we can still put the information
in the author and title files on your Groqit.
We do not have a clue what that 4 or 5 digit
code on some book covers means. But we do know it it not a standard
reference number.
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Book Versions
My Groqit said I don't own this book and I do!
Your Groqit is dependent on the manufacturer's UPC and EAN barcodes.
When a book is published in hardback, paperback or a trade version,
when a title or cover art is changed for a new edition, when a
different company buys the publishing rights, some times even if
just the price changes, there is a new barcode for that version
of the book. Some older books that have been re-released over and
over may have ten or more different numbers.
We promise to do the best job we can with the data we receive
from our sources. They are not perfect and neither are we.
Anything you have keyed in will be in the Title and Author files,
but may not appear in the barcode list. Keep this in mind
when you are looking to see if you have a book that was first published
long ago, as the older the book is the less likely it is to have
been barcoded.
The Christian Bible has over 5,000 published versions!
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2005 Sunrise
The introduction of 2005 Sunrise restricts
new UPC barcodes to USA and Canada. As of 1 January 2007, all
books will use the 13-digit ISBN (aka EAN). Except, of course,
those books published without any numbers at all (like Book Club
editions).
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How do we deal with
this mess?
The Publishers' International ISBN Directory
(PIID) lists 628,795 publishers from 218 countries, regions and
territories. Details of historical publishers (marked
as "ceased publishing"), author publishers - where known - and
more than 20,700 publishers without ISBN's from the USA.
We are working with our partners on a premium service
that will deal with this very tough problem. In the interim, we
read your barcode file, which will contain UPC/EAN/ISBN/LCCN codes
and look up each one.
Any book which has no identifying code will require
an online search by author and title. Whenever possible, we will
translate to an EAN, even if it isn't the exact edition you have.
We will use the newest EAN in print. This gives you the best chance
of catching re-prints.
When we download to your Groqit, the barcode
file will contain the UPC and ISBN and EAN, or the best matches
we could find. The author, title and publisher files will contain
the exact information you entered, for a final check.
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