Covers some of the issues around identifying digital content

1. A Million Little Pieces Identifying Digital Book Content

2. Cecin’est pas un livre Different formats Ebooks – EPUB, Kindle, PDF, downloadable audio Physical books – hardcover, trade paper, mass market, large print, POD, audiobook Chapter-by-chapter – does the customer need/want the whole book? Some books make great websites Travel (Frommers.com) Recipes (Epicurious)

3. Identifying ebooks One ISBN/format? Maintaining metadata on all these formats is confusing and repetitive ISBNs are expensive ISBN for EPUB only? Ebookdistribs will assign ISBNs (or other identifiers) – publishers not in control How to track sales for different formats? New identifier? Reinventing the wheel How to get the book industry to use it consistently? Standards take a long time to get through ISO

4. Identifying chapters ISBN bloat in databases (Caravan project) Exponentially more complicated than one- ISBN-per-ebook-format Cost of ISBNs for something like this is prohibitive for many publishers Cost to industry of inventing a new identifier for chapters DOI is useful – but is a pointer to content location – content still needs to be identified

5. Identifying “chunks” Exponentially complex For sale or display or license? How to locate relevant chunks in GBS and Internet Archive?

6. The Lady or the Tiger? Assign ISBNs to everything in sight (and deal with the metadata pandemonium) Invent new identifiers (which will take many years) Let the marketplace decide (and cede discoverability to third parties)

7. Useful resources BISG/BISAC Identifiers Subcommittee – www.bisg.org US ISBN Agency – www.isbn.org LJNDawson – www.ljndawson.com Persona Non Data – personanondata.blogspot.com