If you sort the list (and maybe I'll ask Edward to put up a sorted list,
just for the curiosity of it), here's what you get as the top publishers
from the Open Library database:
0-19
Oxford University Press <0-19.html>
251368
0-16
U.S. G.P.O. <0-16.html>
245442
0-521
Cambridge University Press <0-521.html>
175340
0-415
Routledge <0-415.html>
117731
0-13
Prentice-Hall <0-13.html>
116635
0-471
Wiley <0-471.html>
112967
0-06
Harper & Row <0-06.html>
109797
0-07
McGraw-Hill <0-07.html>
98202
0-312
St. Martin's Press <0-312.html>
91149
0-02
Macmillan <0-02.html>
75461
A lot of the top 30 or so publishers are university presses, something I
wasn't expecting.
Looking at more of the records, it looks to me like some publishers have
shared ISBNs or something. If you look at the record for MacGibbon & Kee
(http://home.us.archive.org/~edward/isbn/0-261.html) you see
HarperCollins in the list of names. If you look at Arco
(http://home.us.archive.org/~edward/isbn/0-209.html), you see MacGibbon
& Kee. When there's only one entry for a name it could be a typo in the
ISBN, but sometimes are are dozens.
It makes sense to me when Harper & Row and Collins both have
"HarperCollins" in their lists, but for many of the others I admit to
being perplexed. Like When Indiana University press (0-253) has 29 books
from Edinburgh University Press in its list, or 50 from the British Film
Institute. Did they get assigned the same publisher number, or are these
collaborations?
Anyway, just having more fun with what we can learn from our bib data.
kc
--
-----------------------------------
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
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Received on Tue Jul 21 2009 - 15:33:08 EDT