[Web4lib] Query: union search for online books

[Tom Keays]

Something you might be interested in, although Google books is not one
of the options, is a variation of xOCLCNUM that allows you to restrict
to ebooks. They seem to support searches against HathiTrust and
Archive.org (Open Content Alliance) at the moment.

For example, for Don Quixote, there is a recent, copyrighted edition at
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/51848364

but you can use xOCLCNUM to do a FRBR type search against it in
WorldCat to return freely available ebook versions of it.

http://xisbn.worldcat.org/webservices/xid/oclcnum/51848364?method=getEditions&format=txt&library=ebook&fl=oclcnum,url

returns

3754501	http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015015205035
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015015205043
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015015205050
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015015205068
751918	http://www.archive.org/details/lifeexploitsofin01cerv
807350	http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015063843083
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015063843067
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015063843059
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015063843075
4123288	http://www.archive.org/details/ingeniousgentlem03cerv
http://www.archive.org/details/theingeniousgent01cerv
http://www.archive.org/details/theingeniousgent02cerv
465222	http://www.archive.org/details/lifeexploitsofin02cerviala
4730463	http://www.archive.org/details/ingeniousgentlem02cerv
http://www.archive.org/details/ingeniousgentlem01cerv
2616263	http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015054073138
2359234	http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015008012273
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015001782765
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015019987737
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015019978728
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015008012281
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015020001304
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015020001312
2616293	http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015004174465
28229439	http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015063843091
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015062692135
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015063843109
67403865	http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015027196545
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015006601697

This was the subject of a blog post and xOCLCNUM documentation
http://worldcat.org/devnet/blog/2008/12/support_hathitrustorg_in_xoclc.html
http://xisbn.worldcat.org/xisbnadmin/xoclcnum/api.htm#searchinalibrary

They note that you could also use xISBN, but fewer out of copyright
ebooks have ISBN numbers.

Tom

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 1:56 PM, Henry Gladney <hgladney at gmail.com> wrote:
> In recent years several giant digitizations of (mostly) out-of-copyright
> books have been mounted, some by commercial enterprises and some by academic
> institutions.  My relatively cursory Google search has not led me to a Web
> service from which one can mount a search that inspects a large fraction of
> these to determine whether or not a book (or a scholarly article) is
> available in digital form.  (I am aware of Google Book Search (see
> http://books.google.com/intl/en/googlebooks/about.html ) but currently
> believe its scope to be limited.)
>
> I wonder, has the kind of service been programmed and made available?  (I
> believe that providing it would be a relatively straightforward programming
> task.  If not, perhaps some list member will take it on.)   If you know of
> an example, I would be grateful for a pointer to it.  I suspect that other
> members of this distribution list would be as interested as I am.
>
> Best wishes, Henry
>
> H.M. Gladney, Ph.D.     HMG Consulting http://home.pacbell.net/hgladney/
> (408)867-5454
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