Following on Dave's recommendation, you could also use Google Books' Data API [1].  Search for the book, get a structured ATOM feed as a response, presume the first hit is your book, and then follow the ATOM feed link for that books' metadata.  It isn't going to be perfect; I'd be interested to know the end ratio of perfect versus missed matches.

Good luck,
Kevin

[1] http://code.google.com/apis/books/docs/gdata/developers_guide_protocol.html


________________________________________
From: Code for Libraries [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dave Caroline [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2010 5:43 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Any web services that can help sort out this for me.

what definition of large list 10,100,1000,.....

yes google

copy title part "Progress in Smart Materials and Structures" paste in
google box press return

first hit for the first line has the isbn, or you could script it and
use the Open Library API and get the isbn back possibly

Dave Caroline

On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 9:59 AM, David Kane <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi, I have large amounts of data like this:
>
> <yawn>
> Reece, P. L., (2006), Progress in Smart Materials and Structures, Nova
> Ghosh, S. K., (2008), Self-healing materials: fundamentals, design
> strategies and applications, Wiley
> A.Y.K. Chan, Biomedical Device Technology: Principles & Design,
> Charles C. Thomas, 2008.
> L.J. Street, Introduction to Biomedical Engineering Technology, CRC
> Press, 2007.
> </yawn>
>
> ... one book per line.
>
> they are not in any order.
>
> I am lazy.  So, is there a web service out there that I can throw this
> stuff at to organise it for me and ideally find the ISBNs.
>
> Long shot, I know.
>
> But thanks,
>
> David.
>
>
> --
> David Kane
> Systems Librarian
> Waterford Institute of Technology
> Ireland
> http://library.wit.ie/
> [log in to unmask]
> T: ++353.51302838
> M: ++353.876693212
>