Hi, sorry for a completely newbie question. Can I somehowe easily import a list of ISBNs and then use this module to fetch the rest of the data trough Web OPACs?

I have a rather simplistic, but rather long list of books (a catalogue) and I would like to easily fetch the rest of the data from public libraries. This module works great for me, but I can only get data through arbitrary ranges or keyword searches. Is there any other way around it?

Btw. the Google Books link/embedded reader is not showing up even though the same book I have successfully imported has a live preview in GB (same ISBN). I have the GB Teaser & FullView set and Show embedded on Yes.

Comments

janusman’s picture

janusman commented

It's only possible at the momento to import from a list of bibliographic or item record numbers from an OPAC.

In your case you would need to first manually (or automatically) find out the record numbers for a record with an ISBN you want. The thing is, there could be two records with the same ISBN on a single catalog.

For instance:

http://millennium.itesm.mx/search/i?12345678

lists the two bibliographic records for items that have ISBN "12345678" ... you would have to scrape that HTML to find out the record numbers (which is a value inside/near the "add to cart" button or checkbox). When you compile your list of record numbers, give those to Millennium module at admin/content/millennium, under "Source of records" select "Record number listing". Fill out the rest of the form accordingly.

otichy’s picture

otichy commented

Thanks for the reply! In fact this is more or less what I did. I looked at the saearch ISBN URL at two OPACs and then generated a list of links searching for my list of ISBNs. From these I regexped a listo of BIDs and gave those to the module. Would be great if the module could do this on its own...

The only problem is that out of 800 records (academic titles - our departmental library) only about 300 were found in the two opacs I used (Glasgow Uni and NY Public). Is there anywhere a list of Millenium OPACs. I know, this is OT and I can use Google. Just in case somebody watching this module has already created a list like that.

janusman’s picture

janusman commented
Category: support » feature

Try out Marshall Breeding's list of library catalogs, which you can search by automation system, at http://www.librarytechnology.org/libwebcats/?SID=

For starters you could try out NYPL at http://catalog.nypl.org

Leaving open as a feature request. Maybe there is a common use case to be fulfilled with this =)

And, of course, any code or patches welcome.

Good luck!