With only one year to go before all newly published books must carry 13-digit ISBNs, rather than the traditional 10 digits, some industry operation managers are worried that their colleagues on the sales and editorial sides are not taking the change seriously enough. "The issue of the 13-digit ISBN is not just for the IT department," said Laura Nixon Dawson, an industry consultant who is helping the Book Industry Study Group educate the book community about the ins and outs of the 13-digit code. The move to 13 digits, said Laurie Stark of Random House, "is a major shift that will have ripples throughout all publishing companies."

While 13-digit ISBNs will not begin to be phased in until next January, publishers can start using them now by adding the prefix 978 and then recalculating the check (or final) number in the ISBN. (To convert the number, go to www.bisg.org/isbn-13/converters.html.) Publishers can run dual 10-digit and 13-digit ISBNs until next year. Beginning next January, only 13-digit ISBNs will be issued.

The move will not only align ISBNs with the worldwide number system used on all products that are for sale, but will double the number of ISBNs available. By 2007, Dawson notes, titles submitted to the Library of Congress and Books in Print must include ISBN-13s; all invoices and sales documents will need to display 13 digits; and sales reports will be aggregated using 13 digits. As backlist titles are reprinted, plates will be changed to accommodate ISBN-13.

"ISBN-13 is all about easing friction in the supply chain," said Bob Bolick, v-p of global business planning for McGraw-Hill Education. The move to 13 digits, he said, "will let publishers sell books in more places" by making the coding compatible with other retail products. Barnes & Noble's Joe Gonnella said the adoption of ISBN-13 will help companies reduce costs and help to speed the check-out process by simplifying the indentification of products. He said B&N will work with publishers to make sure the transition to ISBN-13 goes as smoothly as possible, adding that the bookseller hopes, over the next two years, to get to the point where most books carry the 13 digits.

BISG has been educating industry members about the importance of 13 digits for almost two years, and its efforts have largely succeeded in getting IT departments up to speed on the issue. "Now it's time to expand beyond the operational people," said outgoing BISG executive director Jeff Abraham. If editors use 10-digit ISBNs after Jan. 1, 2007, and orders come in with 13 digits, that could create confusion within a company, said Bolick, who noted that MHE has already begun receiving some orders using 13 digits.

Tech people are aware that the intricacies of 13-digit ISBNs can sound like a foreign language to many, but as Bolick observed, "retailers will be talking 13, not 10, so we might as well speak their Greek rather than our Roman."