Category:CS1 errors: SBN

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This is a tracking category for CS1 citations that have Standard Book Number (SBN) errors.

Help desk

Check |sbn= value: <type>

Citation Style 1 and Citation Style 2 templates that contain |sbn= are checked to ensure that the SBN is the proper length (nine digits), that the SBN uses the correct optional separators (simple space or hyphen), and that the final check digit is correct according to the SBN specification. Only one SBN is allowed in this field because the whole |sbn= value is included in the citation's COinS metadata. See also Wikipedia:COinS. More than one SBN, or characters that are not part of the SBN, corrupt the COinS metadata and may also corrupt the link to Special:BookSources.

The error message <type> indicator can be:

length – SBN is not 9 digits

checksum – SBN has one or more incorrect digits; look for typos and transposition

invalid character – SBN has one or more 'digits' that is not in the allowed set

invalid form – mis-positioned 'X' check digit

To resolve this error, ensure that the |sbn= value is correct, that only one SBN is used, that the proper optional separators are used, and that no other text is included. If the check digit is a lowercase 'x', change it to an uppercase 'X'.

• Do not try to resolve the error by simply recalculating the check digit. The check digit is there to check whether the main part of the number is correct. If the SBN is failing to validate, it is likely that there is a typo in the main part of the number. In this case, recalculating the check digit results in an apparently valid ISBN that leads to the wrong source (or to nowhere).
• If the SBN as printed in your source is refusing to validate, do check both the front matter and the book cover for SBNs. It is not uncommon for the SBN to be misprinted in the front matter but correct on the cover.
• Do preview your edit and check that the new SBN does now link to the correct source.

In very rare cases, publishers have released books with malformed SBNs. If you are certain that a non-conforming SBN truly corresponds to the published work, then you can add accept-this-as-written markup around the identifier to suppress the error message. In many cases, books may have been reissued with a corrected SBN. Use a corrected SBN when possible.

Pages with this error are automatically placed in Category:CS1 errors: SBN.^[a]