An Evaluation of, and Improvement on, Ayers' Universal Standard Book Number

1 February 1975

journal article
Published by Emerald Publishing in Program: electronic library and information systems

Vol. 9 (2) , 35-45
https://doi.org/10.1108/eb046714

Abstract

Ayers’ recent suggestions for a Universal Standard Book Number, logically generated from a catalogue entry, and therefore applicable restrospectively to bibliographic files, have been implemented and tested on two one-year cumulations of BNB MARC files. The proportion of unique entries provided by the USBN was found to be about 91%. Revisions to the coding tables were made on the basis of a detailed analysis of the results and of determinations of the frequencies of characters in the data elements used. These resulted in improvements to the method, giving an increase in the proportion of unique entries to approximately 96%.

Keywords

This publication has 3 references indexed in Scilit:

The Universal Standard Book Number (USBN): a New Method for the Construction of Control Numbers for Bibliographical Records
Program: electronic library and information systems, 1974
A study of the statistics of letters in English words
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Relativ Frequency of English Speech Sounds
Published by Harvard University Press ,1923