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copied!<p>The long and short of your question is that they are in fact both ISBNs. One is in the 10 digit format and the other is in the newer 13 digit format.</p> <pre><code>978 074942349 0 074942349 8 </code></pre> <p>The 978 is a prefix and the last digit, on both, is a check digit . The barcode on the item you are scanning only represents the 13 digit format.</p> <p>According to <a href="http://www.isbn.org/standards/home/isbn/transition.asp" rel="nofollow">http://www.isbn.org/standards/home/isbn/transition.asp</a> You can always convert from 13 digit ISBN starting with 978 to the 10 digit format and provides a link to an online converter. It also discusses the 979 prefix. I don't believe the 979 prefix is being used yet but its good to be aware that they may be used in future.</p> <p>Having worked in the Library apps space, when searching a library catalog item records will vary greatly in what information they contain. Item records, specifically regarding ISBN, can contain the 10 digit ISBN, 13 digit ISBN, both, or none. So to find an item you might have to try both formats. I believe that some systems, if your search type is set to ISBN, will actually check the submitted ISBN and search for both formats automatically.</p> <p>Depending on what your trying to do. Many library search functions allow for wild cards which may make it easier to find the item your looking for. For example:</p> <pre><code>'if the isbn has a length of 13 and starts with 978 remove the first 3 (the 978) and last digit (the check digit) add a wildcard character to the front and back begin search end if </code></pre> <p>eg 9780749423490 would become *07494234* The downside is that it might return multiple results. Even if that were to happen it would likely only be a couple items and the one your looking, if there, would be easy to spot.</p> <p>As provided by others the Wikipedia article on ISBN goes into more technical details on how to convert between the 10 and 13 digit formats. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number</a></p>

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