You can get a compete list of the ISBNs on LibraryThing—about six
months ago, but hey—from this page:

http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/LibraryThing_APIs

Then you can grab random ones.

T

On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 10:46 AM, Godmar Back <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>  thanks to everybody who's replied with offers to provide ISBNs.
>
>  I need to clarify that I'm looking for a sample of ISBNs that is
>  representative of some larger population, such as "all books cataloged
>  by LoC", or "all books in library X's catalog", or "all books sold by
>  Amazon."
>
>  It could be, for instance, a simple random sample [1].
>
>  What will not work are ISBNs coming from a FRBR service, from a
>  specialized collections, or the "first n ISBNs" coming from a catalog
>  dump (unless that order in which the catalog database is dumped is
>  explicitly random).
>
>   - Godmar
>
>  [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_random_sample
>
>  On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 10:40 AM, Shanley-Roberts, Ross A. Mr.
>  <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>  > I could give you any number of sets of isbns. What kind of material are you interested in: videos, books, poetry, electronic resources, etc., or I could supply a set of isbns for any subject area or LC classification area that you might be interested in.
>  >
>  >  Ross
>  >
>  >
>  >  Ross Shanley-Roberts
>  >  Special Projects Technologist
>  >  Miami University Libraries
>  >  Oxford, OH 45056
>  >  [log in to unmask]
>  >  847 672-9609
>  >  847 894-3911 cell
>
> >
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  >  -----Original Message-----
>  >  From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Godmar Back
>  >  Sent: Monday, April 28, 2008 8:35 AM
>  >  To: [log in to unmask]
>  >  Subject: [CODE4LIB] how to obtain a sampling of ISBNs
>  >
>  >
>  >
>
>
> > Hi,
>  >
>  >  for an investigation/study, I'm looking to obtain a representative
>  >  sample set (say a few hundreds) of ISBNs. For instance, the sample
>  >  could represent LoC's holdings (or some other acceptable/meaningful
>  >  population in the library world).
>  >
>  >  Does anybody have any pointers/ideas on how I might go about this?
>  >
>  >  Thanks!
>  >
>  >   - Godmar
>  >
>



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