Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!ucsd!rutgers!att!ulysses!andante!alice!andrew
From: andrew@alice.UUCP (Andrew Hume)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: new 4.3BSD Unix Internals book
Summary: some clarification
Message-ID: <8845@alice.UUCP>
Date: 28 Jan 89 17:05:03 GMT
References: <568041@vaxa.uwa.oz> <362@microsoft.UUCP> <2248@unmvax.unm.edu>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill NJ
Lines: 20



this is not the right forum for a discussion of library cataloging
but at least i can clarify some of teh questions:

1) the "p. cm." is an incomplete field that gives number and dimension
of the pages. typically only the height is given; e.g. 275p. 23cm.

2) the isbn 0-201-06196-1 has a four parts: the leading zero is for backward
compatibility with sbn's (the old style of book numbers). the second
number is a publisher number (small houses have long numbers, large publishers
have small numbers). the third number is a per-publisher number. the four
number, or more precisely  last digit, is a checksum and can be an X.
the checksum is == 0 mod 11 of the sum of the weighted digits; the weights
start at 2 for the rightmost digit and increase by one towrads the left.

3) the 88-22809 is the library of congress number and CIP means cataloging
in progress which is also why the other fields are incomplete.

this format is called MARC format and your library would have a reference on it.