Hi Christina,

One possibility would just be to find a catalog likely to have what you
need via SRU or Z39.50 -- the quality of metadata will probably be
considerably better than what you can get off Amazon. I think Marcedit has
a batch mode that will let you do this so you don't even need to do any
scripting or figure out syntax.

Although this is a small harvest that won't cause load issues, it's good
form to touch base with whoever manages a system you might target. Although
libraries are dedicated to making information freely available (especially
stuff created at public expense), they can be funny about records.

kyle

On Tue, May 15, 2018 at 6:49 AM, Pikas, Christina K. <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi All,
> Current bibliometrics project is in a humanities/social sciences area (not
> typically my specialty). I'm looking for book descriptions for maybe ~1000
> books. Even if I could automate filling in a few more of these, I would be
> happy. I could scrape a catalog page, but that might be frowned upon. I
> could also download the free MARC files from LoC, but that's way too much.
> We (JHA) don't maintain a cataloging subscription to WorldCat (JHE - our
> parent org, I'm sure must). OpenLibrary appears to not have descriptions.
>
> Thanks in advance for any help!
>
> Christina
>
> ------
> Christina K. Pikas, BS, MLS, PhD
> Librarian
> The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
> Baltimore: 443.778.4812
> D.C.: 240.228.4812
> [log in to unmask]
>