Just a warning about OCLC's xID API: a few weeks ago I requested an access token to bypass the rate limit, and was told that they are no longer giving these out. I was also told that the data in xID has not been updated for some time (I don't know when they stopped, but I think the rep told me it was at least a year out of date). It was very disappointing to learn this; if the project is essentially dead, this fact should be advertised (at the very least, they should take down the pricing list!).


-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of William Denton
Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2015 5:40 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Matching print and electronic editions of the same book

Thanks!  That opens things up.  We do have a lot of OCLC numbers.  For my example book, there's an 035 with three of them, including 841051199. If I look at

http://worldcat.org/oclc/841051199

it takes me to the human-readable page, but

http://worldcat.org/oclc/841051199.rdf

shows it all in RDF, and I can see a lot of things like

<rdf:Description
rdf:about="http://experiment.worldcat.org/entity/work/data/1613596711#Place/japan">

so I can pick out the work ID and look it up.  (Perhaps the work ID be specified directly there?)

So that would work, but aha, I just noticed I could make it a little simpler by using xOCLCNUM to get the work ID, which is the owi field here:

http://xisbn.worldcat.org/webservices/xid/oclcnum/841051199?method=getMetadata&format=json&fl=*

And then I can go to

http://experiment.worldcat.org/entity/work/data/1613596711.rdf

and get all the workExample links, and use those OCLC numbers.

(Which I'm sure you knew, Roy, but perhaps didn't mention because of the rate-limiting, but as far as I know our subscription means I can get an access token so I can do some larger queries.)

A first run of something like this would take a while to process everything, but I'd store locally what I need to know, and then incremental updates for a month's worth of news ebooks wouldn't take long.  Thanks!

Bill

On 9 December 2015, Roy Tennant wrote:

> Do you have an OCLC number in your records? If so, you could call it 
> at WorldCat like this:
>
> http://worldcat.org/oclc/XXXXXXX
>
> scrape the structured linked data on the page, looking for the 
> "Example of Work" link, then follow it to the Work Record:
>
> http://experiment.worldcat.org/entity/work/data/1613596711
>
> That then will give you all of the OCLC numbers that we consider are 
> part of that work (under the "WorkExample" tab).
>
> I know, not an optimal solution even if you have the OCLC number. But 
> it could work if you do.
> Roy
>
> On Wed, Dec 9, 2015 at 1:37 PM, William Denton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> I'm looking at how to match print (p) and electronic (e) editions of 
>> the same book in our collection.  There is no connection between them 
>> in our system (VuFind in front of Symphony).
>>
>> For example, two catalogue entries for two versions of COMPOSING 
>> JAPANESE MUSICAL MODERNITY, entirely separate:
>>
>> + https://www.library.yorku.ca/find/Record/3238132
>> + https://www.library.yorku.ca/find/Record/3311584
>>
>> I want know they're the same book so I can do more usage and 
>> collection analysis.  I've been looking at two ways of doing it with 
>> data available right now:
>>
>> 1 a) MARC 020 (ISBN) can list multiple ISBNs. We have e books where 
>> the p editions are listed.
>>
>> 1 b) MARC 776 (additional physical form entry) for e books can list a 
>> p ISBN or other control number. If we have that edition, great. If 
>> not, need to go from e -> p-we-don't-have -> p-we-do-have, which I 
>> could do with xISBN.
>>
>> 2) OCLC's xISBN. When it reports other editions of the same work, it 
>> can include e versions.
>>
>> There is also:
>>
>> 3) Vendors supplying data.  For example, YBP seems to have all the p 
>> and e editions of books tied together.  We could ask.
>>
>> I've been looking around but can't find any discussion about making 
>> these connections.  Have any of you done it?  Know of it being done 
>> in code I can see? Written it up?
>>
>> Thanks for any pointers,
>>
>> Bill
>> --
>> William Denton ↔  Toronto, Canada ↔  https://www.miskatonic.org/
>

--
William Denton ↔  Toronto, Canada ↔  https://www.miskatonic.org/