One of my first jobs at the publishing company I work for was to assign ISBNs to books. A publisher pays for the prefix, then the rest of the numbers are assigned...arbitrarily.

I used to have this huge dot-matrix printed report that sat on my desk, and when a new book was coming out, I would flip it open, and choose a "code group," and draw a line through it so it wouldn't be used again.

First book I assigned an ISBN? The Cook's Bible by Christopher Kimball. I have a copy on my bookshelf, because I have some sort of pride about giving an book an identification like that.

One day, I assigned myself an ISBN, printed the screen before I hit "save" in our mainframe. I kept the printout as a motiviation for my writing space.

...you probably didn't need all that trivia, but I thought I'd share.

(Reply) (Thread)

Please, I have an entire book on the cultural history of the footnote--in my mind, no tidbit about books is ever trivial.

And you have your own ISBN? How cool! If I one, I would put it on a tshirt and wear it or, better yet, print it onto a bumper sticker and stick it on my laptop, which contains my entire library. That would be fabulously meta.

Will I be seeing you at Arisia this year?

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

see, this is all so COOL!!!!

and DC - i have not actually MET kestrell. can we fix that at arisia?? i know, i'll try to fix it by myself, but help is welcome.

i totally look for books by ISBN. it gets me directly TO the book, instead of getting 15 hits of which 13 aren't what i want.

i loved shelf reading when i had a library job. yes, i would become sleepy doing it, but it was so necessary! an orderly filing system is a thing of great beauty.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

You haven't met the fantabulous Kestrell! Well then YES we must fix that!

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

But you should feel totally welcome to just come up to me and introduce yourself. I am heading Access Services at Arisia this year so I will definitely be around. I'm easy to spot: five feet tall (a little under actually), a mop of curly brownish hair, and I carry a white cane, usually one with a hook on the handle. And I almost always wear sunglasses and wear a lot of black, but I've learned those things aren't too distinguishing amongst our tribe.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

I don't have it assigned to me. I just entered it into the system and printed the screen, then undid it before I hit "Save." I kept the screen shot, however!

We will be at Arisia - Me, Erik, and you'll get to meet Little Miss Martha Rose!

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

Wooooow, congratulations! I have been terribly behind on my LJ reading, so I apologize for missing the original announcement.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

Hey, if I had an ISBN, I think I'd tattoo it on the nape of my neck. Do polyamorous people need ISSNs cause they circulate?

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)