If an institution has updated their barcodes, Ebook Central must be advised so we can add or update the new barcodes or methodology being used by patrons. That can be done by the following:

List of Barcodes

A list of valid barcodes has been uploaded into our authentication database. The users barcode must match exactly as we have it listed.


Pattern Matching

The barcode must march a pattern of characters (such as beginning with a certain alphanumeric prefix, followed by a certain number of digits, so that the entire code is a certain length). The authentication database specifies such a pattern, and the user needs to enter a matching code.

When using barcode patterns, the following needs to be specified:

• The "fixed" prefix for the pattern must be the same for every barcode supplied for that institution. (there can be more than one per institution)
• The "variable" characters for the pattern.  This is done by supplying a '*' character for each additional character than can be in the barcode.
• The length of the barcode pattern is implied by the length of the prefix plus the number of variable characters.  For instance, if the pattern is 1234***** then the length is 9, and all barcodes must be 9 characters long.

• Digits only   1234####
• Alphanumeric characters   A123####
• Any letters can be upper, lower or mixed   x1234####S