The bibliographic information company Bowker has struck a deal with Google to create ISBN numbers for Google Editions–a digital publishing program launching this summer.
Bowker runs the U.S. ISBN Agency, assigning numbers to distinguish each “unique and separately available edition of a book.” With this new deal, Google will now provide ISBN numbers to Google Editions books “when book publishers have not assigned their own unique ISBNs.” Publishers will still bear the “primary responsibility” for assigning ISBN numbers to their titles.
Tom Turvey, Google’s director of strategic partnerships, had this comment: “For Google, this decision was driven by the book industry’s strong reliance on the ISBN along with our partner-centric business and distribution models … We look forward to working closely with Bowker, our publishing and retail partners and the ISBN Standards Community to ensure a stabilized and uniform approach to the cataloging, discovery and selling of Google Editions.”
The complete release follows after the jump.