Bowker is teaming with Google to help assign ISBN numbers for books being published through Google Editions, Google's new bookselling venture set to launch this summer. While publishers will retain the responsibility to assign their own ISBNs, Google will also assign ISBNs to titles when publishers have not given unique ISBNs to titles they plan to offer through Google Editions.
Tom Turvey, director of strategic partnerships at Google, said the agreement with Bowker will help ensure a uniform approach to “cataloging, discovery and selling of Google Editions. For Google, this decision was driven by the book industry’s strong reliance on the ISBN along with our partner-centric business and distribution models,”
The agreement comes not long after the ISBN agency, which is operated by Bowker, urged publishers to assign ISBNs to separately available e-books formats. The agreement is focused on the need to create a unique standard to identify editions of e-books and print-on-demand titles as well as different formats of print books when doing business with multiple partners. Publishers are encouraged to include these records when they distribute catalog data to trading partners.
Andy Weissberg, v-p, identifier services at Bowker and a member of the board of the International ISBN Agency, said, “We applaud Google’s decision to leverage the ISBN Standard for identifying Google Editions, as it will help distinguish these offerings from their print and digital format counterparts in catalogs and systems throughout the supply chain.”
