The Saturday 2004-06-05 at 18:23 -0400, James Knott wrote:
I have a related question. You know that for music CDs it is possible to query a server and get the information for almost any CD. Is there any thing similar for books? I would like to create my personal database of books and articles (with Pybliographic, probably), but when I think of the long hours I would need to type them all, I kind of find excuses faster that I write this email O:-)
Well, for books, you could use the ISBN to look up the title at http://isbntools.com.
Ah, I'll have a look there, thanks. It's a good starting point.
Also, my local library has dial in access, where you can search for books. It also has ISBN lookup, where you can enter an ISBN and get back all the info for that book. It might be possible to automate that process with a script. There are probably on line indexes of various publications. You might want to talk to a librarian, to see what they use.
A paper card index :-p No, no, they have a computerised index. I don't remember what kind of software they have, but I'm almost sure that they don't have it on line. And any way, it would be limited to what they have on that library (and I have books they don't, more than one). Not even using the terminal on the library can I see if what I search for is available at any other library on the country, nor do they have inter library loans. We are not so advanced :-( - yet, I hope. So I was thinking of a general index; the ISBN should be perfect, if it is available for me. -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson