> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Eric Lease Morgan
> Sent: 22 August, 2006 16:24
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [CODE4LIB] worldcat
>
> Is there a public Z39.50/SRU/SRW/Web Services interface to
> WorldCat or OpenWorldCat?
>
> I would like to create a simple search engine to query
> "Other's books", and *Cat seems like a great candidate.
>
> Inquiring minds would like to know.

I'm not sure about a Z39.50/SRU/SRW interface to WorldCat, but
you can access WorldCat via URL queries and it appears that the
data comes back as an XHTML document.  So... you could hack
something together with a little XSLT to simulate an SRU
interface.

Since this isn't documented anywhere, at least that I could find,
with a little digging and hacking I came up with the following:

URL query:
<http://worldcat.org/search?q={your+query+goes+here}>,
e.g.
<http://worldcat.org/search?q=database+design>

Results XPath:
/html/body//table[@class='tableResults']
/html/body//table[@class='tableResults']/tr/td[@class='result']

Next set of results:
<http://worldcat.org/search?q=database+design&start={next+number+in+result+set+goes+here}&qt=next_page>,
e.g.
<http://worldcat.org/search?q=database+design&start=11&qt=next_page>



Andy.