So the xISBN service will give you the workset and basic metadata about
each item in that workset.

http://xisbn.worldcat.org/webservices/xid/isbn/0596002815?method=getEditions&format=xml&fl=*

You can get 1000 request/day without even having to get an affiliate ID.

Another possibility is the inline Schema.org markup in WorldCat.org.

You can link into WorldCat by ISBN - http://www.worldcat.org/isbn/0451462645

Basic metadata is there in RDFa. There is actually a little demo
bookmarklet which grabs the metadata from a Schema.org encoded page and
sends it over so it can be added to Goodreads. -
http://www.oclc.org/developer/prototypes/schemaorg-markup-extractor

I think the WorldCat.org option is better because it is a little closer to
getting work level metadata.

Karen


On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 11:57 AM, Ross Singer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> On Jan 21, 2013, at 8:04 PM, David Fiander <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > The documentation for the APIs is weak, and it looks like it hasn't been
> > updated for a while. Has anybody used them much, or know what the state
> of
> > ongoing development of them is?
>
> I am pretty sure that there is no ongoing development of Open Library.
>  Others may be able to provide more details.
> >
> > All I'm really looking for at this point is a way to convert an ISBN into
> > basic bibliographic data, and to find any related ISBNs, a la OCLC's
> xISBN
> > service.
>
> You can't do this via the API, because there's no way to search for
> work_id (at least none that I'm aware of).  I was running an xISBN clone
> with the OL data, but it stopped working when Talis shut down the
> Platform...
>
> The dataset isn't that large, however.  It may be worthwhile to download
> it and create your own xisbn style services.  It might be even better to
> hack up something at Code4lib13 (or, elsewhere) to take the monthly dumps
> and create a similar service.  I imagine you're not alone in wanting this.
>
> -Ross.