Apostrophes and ISBNS
Posted on January 31st, 2007 by jferriss
We have discovered that having an apostrophe in the ISBN field of a bib record can prevent the patron from placing a request in the PAC. I guess the Polaris software is just not equipped to deal with an apostrophe in the ISBN.
Those with the ability to add bibliographic records should take care when entering ISBNs. You should also be eliminating any apostrophes in words following the ISBN.
Filed under: MVLS, SALS, Standards
I was always under the impression that ISBNs could only contain 0-9, a capital or lowercase ‘X’, and hyphens or spaces…
As the following page illustrates:
http://regexadvice.com/blogs/dneimke/archive/2003/12/06/179.aspx
The page is a little old as the new 13 digit standard is in effect, but the character range, as far as I’m aware, has not changed.
A little clarification. The apostrophe is not in the ISBN, it is in the information following the ISBN in the bib record. When a cataloger enters the following: 9781234567890 (Director’s cut) a patron will be unable to request the corresponding title in the PAC. The apostrophe needs to be eliminated from “Director’s cut.”
Thanks for the clarification, Jen!