Comment by NoMoreNicksLeft
4 days ago
I need unique identifiers. And I disagree. For me, the scan of a book keeps the same ISBN as the printed book that was scanned (when it has an ISBN at all). No other sensible alternative really exists. I also believe Open Library catalogs them the same (since they are archive.org too, and doing much of the scanning).
You may need a unique identifier. You may use the isbn if you like. No one will stop you from doing that. But no isbn-issuing entity has applied an isbn to that file.