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Inputting ISBN information for non--English books

The following procedure is for registering books that were not written in the English language at the www.MyIdentifiers.com ISBN website. Information here is according to my best best research and consultation with a Bowker rep.

Since the information you are entering is for a US ISBN agency, and for use to English stores and websites, all of the information is to be entered in English.

Title: This can be in the native language, but only if it can be represented with Latin (English) characters. For example, Cyrillic characters cannot be entered for a title.

Translated title: For books which are not in English, and for which the title has been entered in English (Latin) characters, a translated from the native language title can be entered here. Enter an English translation of the title, and not a phonetic representation.

Description: In English

Remember, search results (when someone looks up ISBN information) will be in English language.

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However, if your book is in a language that cannot be represented by Latin (English) characters, an opposite method is used:

1) For title, you would put in a translation of the native language title into English. If you did a translation, and the translated title of your translation would be the same as the native English title, then you will need to modify the entry. You can write "Translation of ..."

2) Translated title: Use a phonetic representation of the native language title. This may or may not be of any use to those people who look up the ISBN or search for a book by keywords.

Note that similar difficulties arise for Library of Congress copyright registration. I suggest to use the opposite method outline below to register works which are not in English for LOC registration.

See also: Which ISBN information can be edited later?

˅˅˅ Additional valuable information is available at one of the links below: ˅˅˅