Small and midsized publishers
preparing for the January 1, 2007, transition to a 13-digit ISBN now have a
comprehensive and uniform way to track their internal progress, share news of
progress with trading partners across the industry, and compare their readiness
with that of other publishers, retailers, wholesalers, distributors, and POS
vendors.

Launched September 1, 2005, the
new ISBN-13 Readiness Directory is now available at the Book Industry Study
Group Web site, www.bisg.org.
It was created to help manage the complex internal and external coordination
efforts required for a successful transition to ISBN-13. Your company’s
transition may be in good order, but since you can’t assume that all your
trading partners’ plans will fall into line, working in conjunction with them
through the ISBN-13 Readiness Directory is the best way to make the transition
efficient overall.

To take advantage of the ISBN-13
Readiness Directory, all you have to do is complete one of three tailored
readiness surveys developed by BISG’s ISBN-13 Task Force. The surveys serve
both as checklists of tasks to complete to become ISBN-13 compliant and as
sources of information about whether companies you interact with have completed
these tasks and, if not, when they plan to do so.

The directory works on a “show me
yours, I’ll show you mine” philosophy. To view the readiness plans and progress
of others, you must first post your own.

At this writing, roughly 40
companies are represented in the directory, and feedback is positive. Sarah
Gibson, the supply-chain coordinator for HarperCollins Canada, has said, ”It is
definitely valuable to see which trading partners and which other publishers
are stepping up [their efforts]. It was important to us to get our information
posted.”

Along with HarperCollins (USA and
Canada), companies that have already posted reports on transitioning to ISBN-13
include Baker & Taylor, Bookstore Manager, Global Turnkey Systems,
Holtzbrinck, Ingram Book Company, Library Bound, Oxford University Press,
Random House, R.R. Bowker, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, and Time Warner
Book Group

Angela
Bole

Book
Industry Study Group

www.bisg.org