The ISBN was invented in 1970. Your books don't care
On a Tuesday evening, when cataloging software demands an ISBN to process books printed in 1642, a red border appears. The ISBN, created in 1965 by statistician Gordon Foster, was initially designed for British booksellers. It uses a validation algorithm to uniquely identify editions, formats, and publishers. However, it was never intended to be the universal key to all human publishing. Today, ISBN fields are primary in cataloging applications, but they only cover roughly 50 years of mainstream publishing.
Older books, such as those printed before 1801, require alternative reference numbers like ESTC (English Short Title Catalogue) and VD16 (Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachbereich erschienenen Drucke). These systems catalog books printed long before the ISBN era and are essential identifiers in their respective fields. While the ISBN is genuinely useful for the books it covers, it often fails for older publications, leading to issues when importing catalogs into modern software.
Thus, a serious cataloging system should treat the ISBN as just one reference number among many, rather than the primary key for all books.
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