My Wikipedia page.

Currently working on tidying up Wikipedia:WikiProject_Check_Wikipedia/ISBN_errors.

Useful resources

• LOC ISBN formatting, only works reliably for English and some European geo-coded ISBNs. ((Format ISBN)) does more.
• ISSN lookup: https://portal.issn.org/
• Python utility for hyphenating ISBNs (updatable from official ISBN data source)
• The code I use to fix up ISBNs and other bib IDs. Not perfect — I always manually review and touch up the changes it suggests.

Frequently used templates

• ((ISBN)) for ISBNs.
• ((ISBNT)) for bare ISBNs.
• ((SBN)) for early 9-digit SBNs.
• ((OCLC)) for OCLC numbers.
• ((doi)) for digital object identifiers.
• ((ISSN)) for ISSNs.
• ((cite book)) Book citations.
• ((cite journal)) Journal citations.
• ((cite magazine)) Magazine citations.
• ((cite web)) Web citations.
• ((text)) Escape ISBNs in journal book review titles per Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Check_Wikipedia/ISBN_errors#New_nowiki_self-closed_tag_"error"_detected to avoid false matching by Wikipedia:WPCleaner.
  • e.g.:

    ((cite journal|title= ... ((text|ISBN:)) 0‐8243‐4301‐8 ...))

• ((EAN)) 13 digit identifiers starting with 997 are magazines/serial EAN product codes. Potentially useful for comics? Some books do have region coded EANs (generally not encyclopedia quality... but there could be exceptions).
• ((Verify source)) I'm finding many (closed access) journal book reviews used as refs for statements about a subject, which are suspicious. Shouldn't the book be cited directly? I suspect that some Wiki tools make these refs easier to find and auto-add than the book content. Books reviews make good refs for statements about a book or author, not necessarily about the book's subject. Book author is presumably more of an authority on topic X than the reviewer: ((Verify source|date=June 2024|reason=Book review, not direct source))

Other templates to consider

• ((Listed Invalid ISBN)) For invalid ISBNs which appear printed on materials.
• ((Format ISBN)) Auto-hyphenates ISBNs.
• ((JSTOR))
• ((LCCN)) Library of Congress Control Number
• ((S2CID)) Semantic Scholar id
• ((QID)) Wikidata id / q-number
• ((Internet Archive)) archive.org item id
• ((librivox book)) LibriVox audiobook search

Userboxes

Elsewhere This user contributes to Wikimedia Commons. This user is an editor on Wikidata. Salpynx contributes to Open Library as hornc. Salpynx contributes to Open Library as horncBot. This user has an account on GitHub.

Writing Systems Latn-5 A This user has full understanding of the Latin script. αβγ This user can read the Greek script. Ital-2 𐌄 This user has an intermediate understanding of the Old Italic scripts. Xsux-1 This user has a basic understanding of the Cuneiform. Arab-1 ع‎ This user has a basic understanding of the Arabic script. Hrkt-1 あ This user has a basic understanding of the Katakana or Hiragana.