[Web4lib] capturing data from Amazon in an Access database

[Leslie Johnston]

A kludgy way might be to use the "Add to Library 
Thing" Firefox extension, build your set in LT, 
and take advantage of LIT's tab-delimited 
export.  It comes out in a table with categorized 
rows representing LT's structure for the records.

Leslie

At 05:36 AM 7/3/2007, John Fitzgibbon wrote:
>Hi,
>
>In the old days when we compiled order lists we used Whitaker's Books in
>Print on Cd-Rom and this allowed us to save a record into a text file
>with fields delimited by commas and records delimited by carriage
>returns. I believe that the US equivalent, Bowker, offered the same
>functionality.
>
>Now, we are using Amazon more and more. However, when we find a record
>in Amazon there is no easy way of saving it into Access or Excel.
>
>I don't think XML along with XSLT can be used because authors, titles,
>and prices are not indicated with any special tags on the 'wish list' or
>'shopping cart' pages of Amazon. For example, authors are not delineated
>with <span class='author'> or some such tag.
>
>Also, there is no RSS feed which would provide us with a ready made XML
>page of the results.
>
>Copying and pasting into Excel seems very cumbersome.
>
>When I first considered some solutions to the problem the problem seemed
>very trivial but now, that these solutions won't work, I am at a loss.
>
>If only more web pages were based on XML...
>
>I would welcome any ideas.
>
>Regards
>John
>
>John Fitzgibbon
>
>p: 00 353 91 562471
>f: 00 353 91 565039
>w: http://www.galwaylibrary.ie
>
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------------
Leslie Johnston
Head, Digital Access Services
University of Virginia Library
http://lib.virginia.edu/digital/
http://lib.virginia.edu/digital/das/
johnston at virginia.edu