Computer Science – Databases | e-Consult

ISBN is a suitable primary key because:

• Uniqueness: An ISBN is specifically designed to be a globally unique identifier for each book. No two books should have the same ISBN.
• Reliability: ISBNs are consistently assigned and are unlikely to change.

Title and Author would not be suitable primary keys because:

• Non-Uniqueness: Multiple books can have the same title (e.g., different editions) or the same author (e.g., multiple books by the same author).
• Changeability: Titles and authors can change (e.g., due to re-releases or author name changes). Using these as a primary key would lead to data inconsistencies and make it difficult to reliably identify individual books.