Jakarta, 22 November 2024 – Currently, Indonesia is facing an International Standard Book Number (ISBN) crisis due to limited quotas for book publishing. This crisis began in 2020-2021, when there was a spike in book publishing during the Covid-19 pandemic. The quota allocation given in 2018 was 1 million, but now only around 270 thousand numbers remain. This crisis gave rise to a solution, the Electronic Serial Book Number (ESBN) was introduced, a unique numbering system consisting of 13 digits. ESBN was designed as a new standard for books, including country code, unique book number, year of publication, and type of book. This ESBN system is expected to be an alternative to overcome the ISBN crisis in Indonesia.
The ESBN development system was discovered by Rahmat Putra Yudha, M.Ed, TESOL, as a coordinator who played an important role in this international project. ESBN itself has received support from various national and international organizations, including Oceans-Network European, ESAA European Organization, Indonesian Literacy Association, Mata Garuda LPDP West Kalimantan, LPDP Teachers Association, PGRI West Kalimantan Publisher and Yudha English Gallery, this shows the potential of this system to improve the book publishing situation in Indonesia.
The ESBN system has also been implemented in several countries such as Belgium, Palestine, including Indonesia. In 2023 ESBN has been legally registered as a member of GS1 United States (GS1 US) which refers to a global authority as a barcode and numbering standard.
Currently the ESBN system is very important because it is based on the power to provide various aspects that lead to the world of education. Among them are aspects of standardization, where this system is able to identify educational books so that each book can be recognized universally. In addition, this system also has an accessibility aspect that can make educational books more accessible, especially for teachers and students living in remote areas. ESBN also allows for better tracking of the use of books and other educational resources. Finally, there is the credibility aspect, where this system is able to make officially identified educational books more trusted.
ESBN offers several benefits that can be obtained, including registration as a partner free of charge, ease of identifying works through a unique code on ESBN, can be checked periodically through the ESBN checking system, can be applied to various works including songs and films. If you are interested in trying, you can contact the relevant contact online via email or the platform provided by ESBN.
Thus, ESBN is a solution amidst the difficulties faced by book publishers today, with the aim of improving the quality of educational materials as a whole.
UNJ Communication Science undergraduate students class of 2024 also use ESBN in the e-books they publish as output from the Integrated Communication Technology course taught by Dr. Dini Safitri.
Author: Syaidah Seprinal, Muhammad Raflino, Zahira Rahmawati