ISBN searching - mixed results..

Does adding a "remove spaces" normalizer, in addition to the "remove dashes" one, help? If so, it's just configuration ... which might be worth adding to the stock data.

re: normalizer - I would think so.
FWIW, robot librarian had some normalizer code posted somewhere (as well as a good read on isbn data http://robotlibrarian.billdueber.com/?s=isbn)...

Wow. I have not run into ISBNS with spaces before - either in MARC
records, or in search queries. I guess it's possible. But as George
suggests, simply adding a "remove space" normalizer would screw up the
"### (pbk.)" values in the MARC records. (If people enter "####
(pbk.)" into a search query then they deserve what they get).

I suppose we could add a 3rd normalizer, which, after all spaces and
hyphens have been removed, would then try the following matches in
order and take the first successful match:

a. 13 digits
b. 12 digits followed by an X
c. 10 digits
d. 10 digits followed by an X

*sigh*

I guess at some point a line has to be drawn as to how much "bad data" can be anticipated / accommodated for versus library shops just fixing their data.

Here's another example from just poking around a bit more. I found over 5400 MARC 020's with data in this format (i.e. trailing colon), that might (?) present a problem with remove spaces:

<subfield code="a">0852981937 :</subfield>

This ISBN is perfectly findable in EG right now, but definitely a good / easy target for cleanup I think.... But wait, and Grrr - looking at sample records, it's clear that many/most cases the embedded ":" are there for display purposes!

020 . ‡a1551050420 : ‡c24.95

But the big data boss in the sky doesn't like that, so he commands that we change the standard, even if the standard won't change itself. That colon, IMHO, should be moved to display only in our shop IMHO, so if |c present, add the colon, etc.

Also, only a small number of our ISBN's have spaces instead of dashs FWIW.

thx

I am setting this to incomplete because I am not certain if this is a bug report at this point.

I moved this to Wishlist, since it's a feature request.