What is the difference between ISBN and ISBN-13?

I was on bn.com and I was searching books. When I scrolled down and found the ISBN number I also noticed an ISBN-13 number. Does anyone know the difference and what the ISBN-13 is for?


Here is an example:


http://search.barnesandnoble.com/A-Tale-鈥?/a>


If you just scroll down and view the Product Details you'll find both the ISBN and ISBN-13.|||ISBN is the International Standard Book Number. Traditionally this was a 10 digit number, but there are so many items being published that 10 digits just isn't doing it anymore. Now publishers and libraries are making way for the 13 digit ISBN number which will allow for many more books to be given a unique number. ISBN 13 started in 2007.





It's kind of like when we used to just have a 7 digit phone number, but when we started to run out of numbers there were overlays and now people have to give their full phone number with area code. 13 digit ISBN means more items can be given a unique number in future.





Hope this helps!|||The ISBN is the International Standard Book Number. The ISBN-13 is the UPC barcode that is scanned at the POS when you buy the book. You'll note that the ISBN is fully contained within the ISBN-13. The 13 digit standard is in wide use for POS scanning purposes so it was a natural to expand the ISBN to fit the UPC barcode standard.