 | This article lacks ISBNs for books it lists. |
 | This template should not be substituted. |
Usage
Use this template as a warning that some or all books cited in the article do not have their ISBNs specified. To add this template to an article, simply copy and paste {{Lacking ISBN|date=June 2026}}.
- The guideline WP:CITE states that an ISBN is optional in the citation of a book. Therefore, do not restore this template over objections.
- Do not use this template to warn about books that were not assigned an ISBN by their publishers. Most books originally published before 1974 do not have an ISBN, though later editions of such books should have an ISBN.
- There is currently no consensus on where to place this template in an article but above the reference list is probably the most acceptable.
How to fix the problem flagged by this template
Add an ISBN to every possible book cited in the article. See Wikipedia:ISBN.
An ISBN directs the reader to one edition of a book. If an ISBN is added to a citation at a later date, its edition may differ from the edition originally used as the source in the article. Therefore, a risk arises that its page numbers or even its content may not match the citation. When in doubt, check with the main author(s) of the article or discuss on the article's talk page. As with all CITEVAR issues, defer to the citation system used by the first major contributor if no consensus can be reached.
Tracking categories
- Articles that contain the {{Lacking ISBN}} template are included in Category:Articles lacking ISBNs.
- Incorrect usages of the first positional parameter are tracked in Category:Articles using the Lacking ISBN template incorrectly.
See also
- {{ISBN missing}}, inline template to warn that the ISBN is not specified for a single citation
- {{Biblio}}, broader Cleanup template to warn that citations in an article lack sufficient bibliographical information (e.g. author, title, date of publication, publisher, ISBN, pages cited, etc.)
- {{Please check ISBN}}, inline template to warn about a possible invalid ISBN
- Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup, examples of all possible Cleanup templates
- For books and other sources for which ISBNs cannot be found, these templates create an external link to a page describing the source:
- Template:OCLC, next-best choice after an ISBN (i.e. when an ISBN cannot be found)
- Template:ISSN, for periodicals such as journals and magazines
- Template:UPC, for recordings