The ISBN: A Good Tool Sorely Misused Available to Purchase

It wasn't too many years ago that the creation of a new system for identifying books was announced to the book world with great fanfare and rich promises. The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) was touted as the ultimate tool for keeping track of the hundreds of thousands of titles still available at any given time; it was predicted that the ISBN would revolutionize the book ordering process for both libraries and bookstores. On the face of it, there was no reason to believe that the ISBN could not fulfill its promise of making life infinitely easier for those whose job is buying books.