For US/UK/NZ/Aus/SA, ISBNs are granted through Bowker who does maintain their "Books In Print" data set that, in theory, contains metadata for all of the ISBNs they've granted. In practice though it's a mess. It's expensive to access and relies on publishers to enter in accurate and consistent metadata, which is...variable in quality to say the least. Often publishers buy blocks of ISBNs to use later so no metadata is entered up front and has to be pushed back to Bowker at a later date. To be somewhat fair to Bowker, the history of ISBNs far predates modern data standards and I can imagine wrangling publishers to get accurate data is a difficult task. But on the other hand, you'd think they'd have a lot to gain for doing it right. As someone who runs a book website, it is endlessly frustrating.
greenie_beans|2 years ago