The administration of the ISBN system is carried out on three levels: international, group and publisher levels.

• International Administration

  The international administration and co-ordination of the ISBN system is done through the:

  
  International ISBN Agency
  
  c/o EDItEUR
  
  39-41 North Road
  
  London N7 9DP
  
  UK
  
  Tel: +44 (0) 207 607 0021
  Fax: +44 (0) 207 607 0415
  e-mail: brian@isbn-international.org
  URL: http://isbn-international.org
  
  Executive Director: Brian Green 
  
      

  The International ISBN Agency is assisted by an advisory panel consisting of representatives from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Publishers Association (IPA), the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), and individual ISBN group agencies.

  The principal functions of the International ISBN Agency are:

  • To promote and supervise the world-wide use of the ISBN system.
  • To approve the definition and structure of group agencies.
  • To advise on the establishment and functioning of group agencies.
  • To allocate range identifiers to group agencies.
  • To advise group agencies on the allocation of international publisher identifiers.

• Group administration

  The administration of the ISBN system within a publisher group is the responsibillity of ISBN group agencies, which may operate on a national or regional basis, or within a linguistic group, according to local needs.

  Within a group there may be several national agencies, e.g. group identifier 0/1 has separate agencies in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Austral ia, etc.

  The functions of a group agency are:

  • To promote participation of the ISBN system within its area.
  • To manage and administer the affairs of the group.
  • To decide, in co-operation with publishers and their representative agencies, the range of publisher prefixes required.
  • To allocate publisher prefixes to eligible publishers and maintain a register of publishers and their prefixes.
  • To decide, in consultation with publishers and their representative agencies, which publishers will assign numbers to their own titles, and which will have numbers assigned to their titles by the group agency.
  • To advise publishers on the correct and proper implementation of the system.
  • To provide materials and resources that ensure the proper implementation of the ISBN standard.
  • To make available computer print-outs of ISBN to publishers numbering their own books with check digits already calculated.
  • To inform publishers of any invalid or duplicate ISBN assigned by them.
  • To provide technical advice and assistance to publishers and ensure that standards and approved procedures are observed in the group, including ISBN hyphenation instructions.
  • To encourage and promote the Bookland EAN bar code format
  • To encourage and promote the importance of the ISBN for a proper listing of titles with book listing and bibliographical agencies.
  • To maintain liaison with all elements of the book industry and introduce new publishers to the system.
  • To assist the book industry in the use of the ISBN in computer systems.
  • To handle relations with the International ISBN Agency on behalf of all the publishers in the group.

• Publisher administration

  Publishers are responsible for assigning title identifiers to the individual items they publish and for ensuring the application of pertinent regulations.

  Upon request they may receive a publisher prefix from a group agency and a printout of the ISBNs that are available to them in combination with the allocated publisher prefix.

  Publishers are encouraged to contact book listing and bibliographic agencies for publication of their titles and ISBNs assigned to those titles.

  Further information and detailed instructions are available from the ISBN group agencies and from the International ISBN Agency, and related resources.