Views from Medina Road

Update on the ISBN-13 difficulties. The issue is about building links on Locus Online from book titles and cover images to pages on Amazon, so that anyone ordering a book during a visit to Amazon from a link on Locus Online generates for Locus Online a small commission for their purchase. Late last year I realized Amazon wasn't handling the new 13-digit ISBN numbers. I managed to contact someone at Amazon, and was assured they would support ISBN-13s after the first of the year, when they officially went into effect.

Amazon's links didn't seem to work with ISBN-13s, even after the first of the year. I made a point to track down ISBN-10s for books being posted, so the links would still work; meanwhile Locus Magazine has gone over to use ISBN-13s wherever possible. Finally this week I dug through Amazon's help and FAQ files until stumbling upon an ISBN-13 FAQ, which explained that Amazon uses 10-digit ASIN numbers to identify their products, which just happened to correspond to the old ISBN-10s. And they will continue to do so. On the other hand...

Anyway, cut to the chase: there's an alternate Amazon 'search' link in which I *can* embed a 13-digit ISBN number, and I've reprogrammed my database to generate those kinds of links whenever I have a 13-digit ISBN, and the traditional links when I have a 10-digit ISBN. For examples, see the just-updated Forthcoming Books page -- the Eliot Funtushel title has the 'search' link using the ISBN-13. Clicking it takes you right to the page, the way the traditional links have, so the difference should be transparent to website visitors. But I thought I'd point the difference out, for those of you sufficiently interested in the underpinnings of this website to be reading this blog...