At 09:55 AM 1/6/2009, you wrote:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: c...@l-i-e.com [mailto:c...@l-i-e.com]
>Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 9:47 AM
>To: mysql@lists.mysql.com
>Subject: RE: how to design book db
>
>
>Just theories here:
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>
>The same book re-issued by another publisher might have a different
>ISBN.
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>A book with an insert (e.g., CDROM) may have a different ISBN, but be
>the "same" for some purposes.
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>And mistakes can be made...
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>Ultimately, I suspect that the uniqueness of ISBN to what normal folks
>call the "same book" is not as clear as one would hope.
>
>
[JS] I'm really glad I was able to eavesdrop on this conversation. I had no
idea the ISBN issue was so murky.
For better or worse, most of "my" publishers don't use ISBNs; many of them
don't even assign product numbers.
I guess the only way around it is to assign your own unique key.
BTW, it might be worth while for PJ to look at how Amazon stores its data.
I don't think you can find an easier to use database for searching on
books. It looks like they store 2 ISBN numbers per book. It also appears
they use fulltext indexing on a lot of fields so the user can search on
anything.
Also check out http://www.abebooks.com/
re: ISBN numbers. If this application is for a used bookstore then you're
going to have to allow books without ISBN's because books from 40 years ago
of course don't have ISBN's.
Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isbn.
Mike
>
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