[aged]

I'm finding that paperback books fail more often than not when the UPCC is scanned but they are found readily enough by title/author searches. A different UPC code is found, although sometimes the cover art is even the same. I realize this is not a problem with DL itself (garbage in, garbage out), but are there other sources for data harvesting besides Amazon that might have the correct info?

[geovani_costa_]

Have you tried just putting in the ISBN? That generally works better than a UPC code.

[foodog]

A lot of mass-market paperbacks have a generic UPC on the back that will not work, but these generally have an EAN barcode on the inside front cover that will work, so, try scanning that one.

-Mike

[aged]

Originally Posted by Delicious Monster

A lot of mass-market paperbacks...generally have an EAN barcode on the inside front cover that will work...

-Mike

I'd never noticed. Thanks for the tip. Scanning/retreival is what makes this app work for me.

[ellikelli]

Yep. I noticed this as well. I tried scanning some of my paperbacks with the barcode in the back and it either a) didn't recognize it or b) read it as some DVD but then I noticed that most have another barcode inside the front cover and they worked great.

[Delicious Monster]

The reason for this, as I understand it, is that mass-market paperbacks are often sold in places like grocery stores and newsstands where they buy their books by the pound and don't necessarily care which titles are selling.

However, other people who may have contact with these books, such as actual bookstores or the distributors and publishers, do care, so they have the second barcode.

It's on the front cover because, if the book doesn't sell, it's not worth the money to ship it back, so the vendor strips the front covers and sends them back, then trashes the book. That's also why mass-markets often carry a cryptic warning about not buying it without its cover.

On a related note, the generic bread-and-milk barcode on the back is the same kind of code on other by-the-pound commodities: comic books and magazines, which is one of the biggest reasons why you can't track either in Delicious Library.

-Mike

[phatpat]

I have a lot of 5-10 year old paperbacks. DL can scan them in just fine, but it regularly has trouble pulling the info for them, so I end up with a lot of brown books with the red triangle with an exclamation point in the center. I end up just going to Amazon in Safari, and dragging the link over to DL, which is a nice little feature, but I would rather not have to. I realize this is probably a problem with Amazon, but is anything being done to reduce this?

[bombcar]

I've found that scanning the barcode just inside the front cover seems to work better. Don't know why.

[ajmas]

Which is the EAN number, the one beginning with zero or the one beginning with the non-zero value?

[Ed S]

Which is the EAN number, the one beginning with zero or the one beginning with the non-zero value?

EAN typically starts with 978 and is followed by the ISBN (minus the check digit). This site has a lovely illustration. See also Wikipedia.