Karen,

It seems to me that the Open Library would want to broaden use of this
great collection as much as possible.  Yet, MARC records for the 1/3  or so
items in the collection cannot be downloaded so that they could be imported
into local library systems.

Lots of users searching local libraries who might well use google and Open
Library, Internet Archive for finding ebooks less frequently.

I'll look at Tom Morris's code to see if I might automate record selection
of Open Library records compared with element of MARCXML records of this
last group of Guterberg Project additions.  Thanks for that information.

regards,
dana


On Mon, Aug 18, 2014 at 6:57 PM, Karen Coyle <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> About 1/3 of the 1M ebooks on OpenLibrary.org have full MARC records, and
> you can retrieve the record via the API. There is also a "secret" record
> format that returns not the full MARC for the hard copy (which is what the
> records represent because these are digitized books) but a record that has
> been modified to represent the ebook.
>
> The MARC records for the hard copy follow the pattern:
>
> https://archive.org/download/[archive identifier]/[archive
> identifier]_marc.[xml|mrc]
>
> Download MARC XML https://archive.org/download/myantonia00cathrich/
> myantonia00cathrich_marc.xml
> Download MARC binary https://www.archive.org/download/myantonia00cathrich/
> myantonia00cathrich_meta.mrc <https://archive.org/download/
> myantonia00cathrich/myantonia00cathrich_meta.mrc>
>
>
> To get the one that represents the ebook, do:
>
> https://archive.org/download/[archive identifier]/[archive
> identifier]_archive_marc.xml
>
> https://archive.org/download/myantonia00cathrich/
> myantonia00cathrich_archive_marc.xml
>
> This one has an 007, the 245 $h, and a few other things.
>
> Tom Morris did some code that helps you search for books by author and
> title and retrieve a MARC record. I don't recall where his github archive
> is, but I'll find out and post it here. The code is open source. We used it
> for a project that added ebook records to a public library catalog.
>
> You can also use the OPenLibrary API to select all open access ebooks.
> What I'd like to see is a way to create a list or bibliography in OL that
> then is imported into a program that will find MARC records for those
> books. The list function is still under development, though.
>
> kc
>
>
> On 8/18/14, 3:04 PM, Stuart Yeates wrote:
>
>> There are a stack of great free ebook repositories available on the web,
>> things like https://unglue.it/ http://www.gutenberg.org/
>> https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page http://www.gutenberg.net.au/
>> https://www.smashwords.com/books/category/1/newest/0/free/any etc, etc
>>
>> What there doesn't appear to be, is high-quality AACR2 / RDA records
>> available for these. There are things like https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.
>> au/meta/pg/ which are elaborate dublin core to MARC converters, but
>> these lack standardisation of names, authority control (people, entities,
>> places, etc), interlinking, etc.
>>
>> It seems to me that quality metadata would greatly increase the value /
>> findability / use of these projects and thus their visibility and available
>> sources.
>>
>> Are there any projects working in this space already? Are there suitable
>> tools available?
>>
>> cheers
>> stuart
>>
>
> --
> Karen Coyle
> [log in to unmask] http://kcoyle.net
> m: +1-510-435-8234
> skype: kcoylenet/+1-510-984-3600
>



-- 
Dana Pearson
dbpearsonmlis.com
Metadata and Bibliographic Services for Libraries