Tim, I think this is a fantastic idea and the only suggestion I would
make is to make sure you get on the Open Library developers list (I'm
looking for the URL... I'll email when I find it unless someone else
beats me to it) and discuss this there. (You may already have done
this, I don't know.) They may be interested in hosting such a
project, and of course it would be helpful to have their knowledge of
the collections and apis on call. They seem to be keen on involving
developers from outside the Internet Archives staff, and this seems
like a perfect opportunity.

I would be very interested in helping you test such a service,
though, and I would definitely put links into our library catalogue.

Bess

Elizabeth (Bess) Sadler
Research and Development Librarian
Digital Scholarship Services
Box 400129
Alderman Library
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22904

[log in to unmask]
(434) 243-2305

On Mar 6, 2008, at 8:47 AM, Tim Shearer wrote:

> Howdy folks,
>
> I've been playing and thinking.  I'd like to have what amounts to a
> unique
> identifier index to oca digitized texts.  I want to be able to pull
> all the
> records that have oclc numbers, issns, isbns, etc.  I want it to be
> lightweight, fast, searchable.
>
> Would anyone else want/use such a thing?
>
> I'm thinking about building something like this.
>
> If I do, it would be ideal if wouldn't be a duplication of effort,
> so anyone
> got this in the works?  And if it would meet the needs of others.
>
> My basic notion is to crawl the site (starting with "americana",
> the American
> Libraries.  Pull the oca unique identifier (e.g.
> northcarolinayea1910rale) and
> associate it with
>
> unique identifiers (oclc numbers, issns, isbns, lc numbers)
> contributing institution's alias and unique catalog identifier
> upload date
>
> That's all I was thinking of.  Then there's what you might be able
> to do with
> it:
>
>         Give me all the oca unique identifiers that have oclc numbers
>         Give me all the oca unique identifiers with isbns that were
>                 uploaded between x and y date
>         Give me the oca unique identifier for this oclc number
>
> Planning to do:
>
>         keep crawling it and keep it up to date.
>
> Things I wasn't planning to do:
>
>         worry about other unique ids (you'd have to go to xISBN or
>                 ThingISBN yourself)
>         worry about storing anything else from oca.
>
> It would be good for being able to add an 856 to matches in your
> catalog. It
> would not be good for grabbing all marc records for all of oca.
>
> Anyhow, is this duplication of effort?  Would you like something
> like this?
> What else would you like it to do (keeping in mind this is an
> unfunded pet
> project)?  How would you want to talk to it?  I was thinking of a
> web service,
> but hadn't thought too much about how to query it or how I'd
> deliver results.
>
> Of course I'm being an idiot and trying out new tools at the same
> time (python
> to see what the buzz is all about, sqlite just to learn it (it may
> not work
> out)).
>
> Thoughts?  Vicious criticism?
>
> -t