For what it's worth, I see over 7,000 links to IMDB from WorldCat records. Roy On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 9:01 AM, marijane white <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > To confirm some of what Jonathan said... > > As the maintainer of a collection nearing 20,000 DVDs, I can confirm that > DVDs rarely have ISBNs. When they do, it's usually educational, > instructional, or musical content. I don't think I've seen a feature film > DVD with an ISBN. > > IMDB does have UPC data for some DVDs. IIRC, searching for a UPC on IMDB > takes you to a page listing the DVDs for a particular movie, rather than the > main title page. > > The only DVDs I've seen that did not have a UPC were pre-release screeners, > which I would be surprised to find in most library collections. > > > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 8:26 AM, Jonathan Rochkind <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> But you're just going to have to title search on freebase, right? (Same >> functionality may be avail on IMBD directly without going through freebase, >> but more importantly...) >> >> There are frequently movies sharing the same title with an entirely >> different movie. Maybe title/year search instead? >> >> But movies wind up with several 'publication dates' (date of release in >> theaters, date of release for a DVD or videotape, different dates of release >> for different manifestations. Who knows what date you've got in your >> 'source' record you're trying to link to, and if that's going to match the >> date(s) in the freebase record. >> >> I'm not sure of a great way to do this. Metadata matching is a bitch. >> >> A FEW of our library bibliographic records actually have a UPC/EAN in them >> for videos. (ISBN is actually a subset of UPC/EAN, at least since ISBN-13. >> But I think DVDs and videocassettes sold aren't going to have an ISBN >> usually, but usually will have a UPC/EAN). >> >> If you've got one of those, you might be able to search on that in >> freebase? (even if you can't in IMBD directly? here's where freebase might >> rule). Relies on freebase having that UPC/EAN in it's database, for the >> particular manifestation you've got a record for. Not sure the prospects >> of that. And few (but some) of our records have UPC/EAN anyway. >> >> In general here though, this is another reminder that in the present >> environment, unambiguous identifiers RULE. Like ISBN, UPC/EAN, etc. One of >> the most valuable things catalogers can add to records. I really wish it >> would become common practice to add a UPC/EAN to all dvd/video records where >> the item-in-hand has one on it. Even if that means sacrificing some other >> things, I know cataloger time is a precious resource. But UPC/EAN should be >> considered very very high value, it could enable all sorts of value-added >> services and linking to external databases. >> >> Jonathan >> >> >> On 4/27/2011 11:09 AM, Sean Hannan wrote: >> >>> If I were doing this, I'd use the Freebase (freebase.com) API and write a >>> little app that returns the IMDB title stem (ex: tt0460791) for each of >>> the >>> films you're trying to match up. >>> >>> -Sean >>> >>> >>> On 4/27/11 10:56 AM, "R. Levi"<[log in to unmask]> wrote: >>> >>> I would like to add a link to IMDB for the feature films that we have in >>>> our >>>> catalog. IMDB doesn't appear to have ISBNs. Is there a way to link the >>>> MARC >>>> record with the IMDB record without manually searching IMDB to find each >>>> movie? Thanks, Rich >>>> >>> >