BookThink News Alert

by Craig Stark

#31, 17 November 2004

ScoutPal Partners with Abebooks

If you've used, profited from and, well, loved your ScoutPal doggy until now, get ready to start adoring it because Dave Anderson has recently reached an agreement with Abebooks that will extend its search reach to territory previously inaccessible to booksellers and all but overcome its limitation of linking only to Amazon, ISBN-era listings.

Here's how it works: if a book has an ISBN, it's business as usual - almost. Amazon results still appear, but now they're supplemented with Abebooks listings as well. However, if the book is minus an ISBN but does have a LCCN (Library of Congress Control Number) you can enter this instead, and results from Abebooks will appear, displaying the lowest price and count. As with Amazon results, users will be able to "drill down" and view detailed Abebooks listings.

The significance of this is that it extends your search reach to titles several decades deep (1950's and 1960's) into the pre-ISBN era and will also nail more recent titles that, for one reason or another, have an LCCN but not an ISBN. And here's a serendipity: LCCN searches are faster because the numbers you'll be typing in most often will be only 7 or 8 digits long instead of the 10 digits you've been entering for ISBN's.

There's more. No ISBN? No LCCN? No problem. A text mode is now available for PDA's and cell phones that allows you to type the title in and score results for virtually any book at all, with or without an ISBN or LCCN. If you have a handheld computer, this is simply a matter switching to ScoutPal's text mode and typing in the title on your keyboard. For cell phone users, admittedly, this task is considerably slower but still doable, and if you're contemplating spending $10, $20 or more on a vintage book that you're not familiar with, it's time well spent.

Dave gave me the opportunity to test the new service earlier this week, and I'm happy to report that it performed quickly and flawlessly. Current ScoutPal subscribers, who, by the way, will receive an email announcement from Dave shortly, can access this upgrade Friday morning, Nov. 19 by logging into the ScoutPal website, clicking the "Format Your Results" button, checking the Abebooks "Lowest" and "Count" boxes, and saving the changes.

TO REPEAT: This upgrade will go live Friday morning, Nov. 19.

More good news: Dave reports that pricing will not be affected by this upgrade.

If you aren't yet a subscriber, this tool has become so powerful now that it's difficult for me to imagine how it couldn't benefit any bookseller. I'm always on guard against overselling things at BookThink, but guys, in my considered opinion, this is the time to act.

For more information or to subscribe, click here:

If you've used, profited from and, well, loved your ScoutPal doggy until now, get ready to start adoring it because Dave Anderson has recently reached an agreement with Abebooks that will extend its search reach to territory previously inaccessible to booksellers and all but overcome its limitation of linking only to Amazon, ISBN-era listings.

Here's how it works: if a book has an ISBN, it's business as usual - almost. Amazon results still appear, but now they're supplemented with Abebooks listings as well. However, if the book is minus an ISBN but does have a LCCN (Library of Congress Control Number) you can enter this instead, and results from Abebooks will appear, displaying the lowest price and count. As with Amazon results, users will be able to "drill down" and view detailed Abebooks listings.

The significance of this is that it extends your search reach to titles several decades deep (1950's and 1960's) into the pre-ISBN era and will also nail more recent titles that, for one reason or another, have an LCCN but not an ISBN. And here's a serendipity: LCCN searches are faster because the numbers you'll be typing in most often will be only 7 or 8 digits long instead of the 10 digits you've been entering for ISBN's.

There's more. No ISBN? No LCCN? No problem. A text mode is now available for PDA's and cell phones that allows you to type the title in and score results for virtually any book at all, with or without an ISBN or LCCN. If you have a handheld computer, this is simply a matter switching to ScoutPal's text mode and typing in the title on your keyboard. For cell phone users, admittedly, this task is considerably slower but still doable, and if you're contemplating spending $10, $20 or more on a vintage book that you're not familiar with, it's time well spent.

Dave gave me the opportunity to test the new service earlier this week, and I'm happy to report that it performed quickly and flawlessly. Current ScoutPal subscribers, who, by the way, will receive an email announcement from Dave shortly, can access this upgrade Friday morning, Nov. 19 by logging into the ScoutPal website, clicking the "Format Your Results" button, checking the Abebooks "Lowest" and "Count" boxes, and saving the changes.

TO REPEAT: This upgrade will go live Friday morning, Nov. 19.

More good news: Dave reports that pricing will not be affected by this upgrade.

If you aren't yet a subscriber, this tool has become so powerful now that it's difficult for me to imagine how it couldn't benefit any bookseller. I'm always on guard against overselling things at BookThink, but guys, in my considered opinion, this is the time to act.

For more information or to subscribe, click here:

A Few Comments on LCCNs

LCCNs, or Library of Congress Control Numbers, were first known (and are sometimes still erroneously referred to) as Library of Congress Card Numbers. They were introduced in 1898 but didn't begin to make appearances in books until the 1920's - and then only sporadically until the 1950's, when they began to appear with some regularity. The decades-long delay was due to the slow development of communications structures between the Library of Congress and publishers.

Most commonly - and this will apply almost universally to books published in the pre-ISBN era - the LCCN format is a 2-digit number followed by a hyphen followed by a 6-digit or, more often, 5-digit serial number. The hyphen was eliminated in more recent 20th century publications. If there are fewer than 6 digits, leading zeros can be added to make up the difference, but this is only necessary if you're doing a search in the Library of Congress catalog. It's NOT necessary when using ScoutPal. Simply type in the numbers as they appear, but note that if you do add the zeros, ScoutPal will still deliver the same results.

The first 2 digits of LCCNs reference the year of publication, the last 6 the specific title. This format changed January 2, 2001, to distinguish books published in the 20th century from those published in this century, and 2 digits were added to the year prefix. 10 digits is the norm now, no hyphen. Examples from each century:

Bookbinding for Beginners by John Corderoy: 67-13739 (may be filled to 67-013739) - published in 1967.

The Repair of Cloth Bindings by Arthur W. Johnson: 2002066220 - published in 2002.

IMPORTANT: in odd case of a post-2000 book that possesses an LCCN but not an ISBN, there’s a potential conflict since the 10-digit number will be read as an ISBN first, and if by coincidence the LCCN matches an ISBN of another title, the wrong results will be displayed. This can be sidestepped, however, by adding '999' to the beginning of the LCCN.

It's also important to note that LCCNs aren't edition sensitive but are applied to all editions - in other words, a first, second and all subsequent editions will bear the same number. Also, LCCNs will not always be present in ISBN era books.

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