The EAN-5 is a 5-digit European Article Number code, and is a supplement to the EAN-13 barcode used on books. It is used to give a suggestion for the price of the book.
| First Digit | Description |
|---|---|
| 5 | $ US |
| 6 | $ Canada |
| 4 | $ New Zealand |
| 3 | $ Australia |
| 0 & 1 | British pounds |
ISBN Encoding – Country and Currency Values Description
| Value | Definition |
|---|---|
| 50000 | NACS Trade |
| 59999 | Price for $100 and more |
| 90000 | NACS New |
| 90000-98999 | For internal purposes (BISG recommend 90000 if no price is given) |
| 99000-99989 | Reserved for the industry market |
| 99990-99999 | Reserved for National Association of College Stores (NACS) |
| 99990 | NACS used |
| 99991 | NACS copies |
The Encoding of EAN-5 characters is very similar to that of the other European Article Numbers. The only difference is that the digits are separated by 01. The EAN-5 always begins with '01011.' Also, the R-Code is not used.
The structure of the barcode is based on the checksum. In order to compute the checksum, multiply each of the digits by either 3 or 9, alternating each time. Then add them and then do a mod 10. So the checksum for 05415 MN is 1 based on the following calculations: 0*3=0 5*9=45 4*3=12 1*9=9 5*3=15 ---------- 81 % 10 = 1
Once you have the checksum digit, you can look up the structure in the following table. Note that the checksum digit is not in the final 5 digits, and is not intended to validate the 5 digit data, but rather to validate the reading of the EAN-5 overall.