Thank you so much for the offer - I'm working with Harvard's now, and I think I should probably get on to the analysis and write up.

Thanks everyone!

Christina

-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mark Sandford
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2018 8:49 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] API for book descriptions?

Christina,

I can grab a random 1000 descriptions/summaries from our catalog records easily enough and send them to you.  I assume you're looking for data in the MARC 520 field.  Do you need additional info (title, author, etc?).

-------
Mark Sandford
Systems Librarian
Assistant Professor in the Libraries
Colgate University Libraries



On Tue, May 15, 2018 at 9:49 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]
>