Paul is correct, most barcode readers, other than the most inexpensive barwands, are programmable. They should come with a booklet (manual) full of special barcodes you can scan to program the reader to do all sorts of fancy things, including ignoring digits at either end of the barcode, sending (or not sending) return characters at the end of the scan, etc. If you don't have the manual for your reader, whoever sold it to you should be able to supply it, often by e-mailing it as a pdf file. We have many readers running around in our libraries, but each different reader requires different programming barcodes, so you really will need to get the correct manual. Stephen Hedges

I am trying to pull the ISBN out of the UPC on the back of the book! So I will need to also drop the first 3 chars also. Ed!

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The last digit of an isbn is a check digit. Your barcode reader is probably programmed to drop it before transmission to computer. Most readers can be parametered to send or drop check-digits.

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