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Internet Book Database? 232

Posted by michael from the readin-ritin-and-right-clickin dept.
Anonymous Coward writes "Just about everyone has used either the CDDB or freedb CD databases. And many people are also familiar with DVD Profiler, a well developed database for DVD fans. Each of these public databases have a number of wonderful strengths, and a few weaknesses, but they are well thought out and well developed. After searching Google, sourceforge and every other search engine I could think of, I have come to the conclusion that there is not a well developed internet book database. While many people would be quick to point out the various commercial websites (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc), and the various library databases (Library of Congress, Boston Public Library, and other online catalogs), none of these online databases offer the same ease of use of DVD Profiler, or the open structure of the online CD databases. The closest program I could find was the shareware program Readerware. This program will search several web sites and download the pertinent information, but it is extremely inefficient, as it does not then store the data in a central database to make it easier for the other users, and in my opinion, the UI is terrible. What programs, if any, do those of you reading /. use to keep track of your books? If you were to start an open source internet book database project, what features would you include in it?" Books in Print is the definitive book database; apparently it costs about $30,000/year to license it.
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Internet Book Database?

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  • I use a bookcase...

    What would be the point of a book database? The databases for DVDs and CDs allow for players on a machine to spit out relevant track/title information. I'm having a hard time coming up with a reason to have a book database.

    • Re:To keep track of my books? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Lemmy Caution ( 8378 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @06:24PM (#3354202) Homepage
      In conjunction with a barcode scanner/CueCat, it could make it a lot easier to start private libraries. I have a couple thousand books, about a hundred of which I lend out at any given time. Be nice to make a catalog, and a freely available cddb-like ISBN-based system would make that a lot easier.
      • ISBN based may be innefficient. If you're library has any real depth you run into the same problem that prevents used bookstores from using a similar system: ISBN's were only widely implemented about 20 years ago(some margin for error there - I don't recall the exact date). Title/Author/Publisher is the only way to id books predating ISBN's.
        • Fair enough, the key value would be T/A/P/E (Edition information) + ISDN - but a system that returned T/A/P for ISDN when it's there and vice versa (or null when it isn't) would still be very, very helpful. Reducing data input by the percentage of books in a library that are 20 years old is still a gain.
      • For those of us who are computer history book geeks, knowing which books refer to which computers would be a big help. For example, if I'm interested in the "System/23", which book actually says anything about it? And at what level is the information? Really technical? Totally dishes the politics? Pro-system/23, or does it mention the flaws? Any pictures?

      • We had a room full of tech-books that had accumilated since before I started. When the PHBs would have dumped the whole lot in a skip, I spent the better part of a week sorting through that lot, Addison-Wesley X11 reference, Adobe Postscript reference, C, Fortran, a complete set of A/UX manuals, etc. etc. etc. No-one in the organisation even knew they existed anymore. Being able to zap the barcodes through a reader and generate a catalogue on our intranet would be cool, there are another three depertments that have similar geek rooms that are always one zealous PHB away from the dumpster.

        Hmmm... I am sure there must be ISBN search facilities I can screen-scrape.... Coworker types ISBN of their newly received book into a front end and voila! I can grep for it.

        Xix.

      • Works nicely, I've considered using that for my own book collection. But, how would you catalog the enormous amount of books that do not have ISBNs? I've got books from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and I can't assign numbers to them quite so easily. So, while this database would be great, you would need a separate primary key from the ISBN.

        Granted, almost any book today has an ISBN. But, there's a huge chunk of books that do not. And having another field in the database (for unique IDs of books) bloats up the necessary size. And, by not requiring an ISBN, you allow duplicate entries far too easily. Don't get me wrong, I would love something like this. But, it's more difficult to implement than a unified slashdot opinion.

    • ...then I guess there is no point. I have 5 at home and 2 at work.
    • Well, if you only own a couple hundred books or so, keeping track of them isn't hard. If you own thousands, having some system is needed. I have about as many bookshelves as I have wallspace, and even then books are stacked 2 or three deep on them.
    • BIBTEX and MARC are two format for managing bibliographic data. But if you're thinking of rolling your own reference manager, then you'll quickly find out that it's not just a flat file and then you'll also need to integrate it with your data source and with your editor/wordprocessor.

      If you just want to import citations, the Z39.50 [loc.gov] search and retrieval protocol is the way to import from yor library catalog and many online databases. Indexdata has number of multiplatform tools that you can use, such as YAZ [indexdata.dk] (a z39.50 client) and PHPYAZ [indexdata.dk]. Three commercial packages import from Z39.50 sources nicely (Bookwhere [webclarity.info], Procite [procite.com] and Endnote [endnote.com]) both Procite and Endnot work well at managing your footnotes during workprocessing, taking care of numbering and layout (e.g. APA or Chicago Manual of Style, etc.).

      If you want something under GPL and more oriented to managing web sites and other Internet resources, then you may want to try hypatia [sourceforge.net]. You'll have to ask special for it, but it's available. Here are the parts I've seen so far:

      • Web-based interface, both end users and maintainers.
      • Fully multi-lingual, including both interface and content. (It is very easy to add another language to the interfaces. Right now English and Spanish are complete, Norwegian and Finnish are being translated.) Support for Unicode (Which means you're free to add interfaces in or ).
      • Useable on many different platforms, including Linux, Unix, and Windows.
      • Individual installations can exchange records, allowing federated content and service providers to work together seamlessly. (Haven't tried it yet.)
      • Compatible with relevant standards, including MARC, Dublin Core, and the Networked Reference standard currently under development by NISO.
      • Special features for digital collections, such as automatic URL checking.
      • Authority control over names (e.g. People and Organizations).
      • Uses perl/MySQL/javascript
      You can see the end user interface in production at the IPL [ipl.org] in the serials [ipl.org], newspapers [ipl.org], or online texts [ipl.org] collections. The collection managment interfaces are even nicer and very useful. I'm sure it can be tweaked for data on legacy media as well.

  • Have you tried the Dewey Decimal System? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Ummagumma ( 137757 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @06:20PM (#3354178) Journal
    I put all my books in order on my shelves, and make 3.5" index cards for each, organized by the Dewey Decimal System [tnrdlib.bc.ca].

    That way, when the power goes out, I can still find the right book by candlelight. ;)
    • I've actually arranged my books based on the Library of Congress call numbers. It worked rather nicely. Of course, it was a pain in the butt to do it at first. For some reason, you only ever come up with an idea for organizing something *after* you have too many to deal with quickly.
      • I'm in the process of doing the same thing, but I hit on something nice: the computer's great at putting things in order. So I scan or type in the ISBN, a perl script grabs the books information from the LOC(via z3950), and when I'm done, the system spits out a list of books in LOC order with the Title/Author next to it. As I go down the list of books, it naturally gets put in the right order on the shelf.

        At least that's the theory. I'm over 200 books so far, and I've just finished about 1/3 of the books.

        This is gonna take some time.
        • Any chance you could make that perl script available somewhere?

          Danny.

        • So I scan or type in the ISBN, a perl script grabs the books information from the LOC(via z3950), and when I'm done, the system spits out a list of books in LOC order with the Title/Author next to it.

          And what better to scan the ISBN with than a Cue Cat. My mother has about 400 paperback romance novels, and every time she goes to the bookstore, she can't figure out if she's read that book yet or not. She picks a book up, reads two pages, and says "I can't tell if I've read that one before or not." (Of course, I ask her how can she tell?) A Cue Cat and a CDDB style book database would allow me to scan the barcode and catalog every one of her books very quickly so she can bring a printout to the bookstore with her.
  • yes... i would definately put that in...

    .............. I NEVER LEARNED TO READ!!

    nevermind.

  • Wrote my own (Score:2, Interesting)

    by smoore ( 25406 )
    Wrote my own Mysql/PHP. Not very good just enough to keep track of them. http://www.teuse.net/books

  • Format issue (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Metropolitan ( 107536 )
    The most likely reason for this is, at least so far, the difference in format between books and digital discs of any kind. It's very easy and direct to examine the structure of a disc, but until books become digital as well this won't be as simple.

    Books In Print is a great resource, if you have access to it. Amazon works well as a poor man's version.

  • What would be the point? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by tongue ( 30814 )
    I fail to see the usefulness of such a database, outside the traditional search engine uses. CDDB and freedb both serve a function in that they identify some electronic data for me so I don't have to--a CD i've inserted into my drive. DVD Profiler presumably performs a similar function (I've not used it so I can't say for certain). But books don't have an analogue in this area. If you had an electronic version of a book, presumably it would also have whatever index you needed with it. And if you wanted an index across titles, you would use some search engine like google. But there aren't enough of these kinds of titles to warrant such an application, and i'm afraid I don't see the advent of that time approaching. Between incompatible proprietary formats and the DMCA, I think it'll be quite a long time before we have a standard "book cd" format that is used in generic book appliances a la' Rocketbook.

    • Re:What would be the point? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jcwren ( 166164 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @06:25PM (#3354215) Homepage
      My use for such a database is partly for to make sure I haven't already read something (I just love buying the same book twice because the cover changed), and for insurance reasons.

      I want to be able to use a barcode scanner (or even type the ISBN by hand), and pull all the relevant information from a DB to my local machine. This is exactly the point of CDDB, as I see it.

      If I don't have to enter all the information by hand for a CD, why should I have to do it for a book?

      --jcwren (owner of about 2700 books)

      • Re:What would be the point? (Score:5, Informative)

        by hoggoth ( 414195 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @06:39PM (#3354306) Journal
        Then just stick the ISBN numbers into MySQL, an Excel spreadsheet, or an Access database.
        Then write a quicky Perl script to scan through the records and any that don't have all the information filled in, go scrub it off of Amazon's web site.
        I've already written several Perl scripts that scrub data from Amazon. It's pretty simple.

        (hint:

        use LWP::Simple;
        $page = get http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/$isbn;
        ($d esc, $pgs, $price, $other) = $page =~ /use regex to find (desc) and (pgs) and (price) and (other) usefull stuff/;

        )

        • While it may seem like a good idea to scam information off of Amazon, one day that will catch up with you. If Amazon changes their page layout, you're screwed, if Amazon changes their URL format, you're screwed, if Amazon finds out what you're doing, and if you make any money off it, you're sued. If we want a book database that is to be used widely , it must be something that is clear of the pitfalls of stealing from someone else.

          Yikes, what does this say about the state of MP3s?
          • He didn't ask for "a book database that is widely used". He simply wanted to enter his 2500+ books into a database without typing in lots of information. If Amazon changes their format he won't be "screwed", he'll just update his Perl script.

            A publically available book database is an entirely different matter.

      • I just love buying the same book twice because the cover changed
        Eew, even worse about six years ago I bought two titles from a certain unnamed snail-mail based bookseller, one titled "Power Macintosh Programming Starter Kit". I forget the title of the other one, 'cause I gave it to a friend a long time ago, but the topic was similar, Power Macintosh programming around the time when the PowerPC was first released. Here's the kicker: the content of the books was identical, although they listed different authors! Access to a database like this would've saved me $29.95 + shipping. At least I had a friend who was interested in the same topic so I could at least give it to someone as a present.
      • Ok, I'll give you the ISBN/bar code bit, although I think its usefulness is probably hampered by the lack of widespread bar-code scanners; anybody got a spare cuecat laying around?

        anybody think there'd be copyright issues in snagging the info from amazon?
    • You dead right about not needin no index or nothin online that is already in the book.

      But peep this: What if there was some kinda database that had the whole book in digital form, but was only searchable instead of readable. That way when fools need to find out instances of a certain word of phrase in a book, they could find out on the web, and get page numbers to look up in they hard copy. It'a keep the publishers happy cause you wouldn't be able to pirate they material, and it'a keep readers happy cause they'd have some of the digital benefits that they cain't get wit a paper book.
    • personal libbraries.
      I owuld love to scan my books barcode, and have all the relevant information out into a local database. Then I can track my books, use a wireless connection to log on at home and see if I already own a book I fine in a local used book store.
      I have over 1000 books, this could be tremendously useful. My wife could use it a a quick and effecient means to see if I already have a collector book.

    • Re:What would be the point? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rmohr02 ( 208447 ) <mohr.42NO@SPAMosu.edu> on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @08:20PM (#3355029)
      So you also fail to see the usefulness of the Internet Movie Database [imdb.com]? I, personally, visit the IMDb almost as much as I visit /.

  • While I understand some /. posters actually do know how to read, I suspect that the closest they get to a book is the title, which tells them all they need to know in order to hold definitive opinions on the book's author, subject, publisher, and political position.

    All kidding aside, the resource my wife regularly uses is google to find pages regarding books she reads for her book groups.

    I would love to see an internet book database, though I know of none. In fact, I would be interested in contributing to such a project.

  • The Example of CDDB (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @06:22PM (#3354193) Journal
    I am concerned about the prior example of the CDDB, where all of these people contributed tyo this great resource, only to have the resource get sold off and commercialized and turned into a tool to track users, etc.

    So While I really like the idea of the database, I do not like the possibility of the thievery of honest work by generous people.

    Is there someway so that this could be donated into the public domain or something from day one?

    (just trying to wrap my mushy mind around this for the moment.)

    • Like this? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by danro ( 544913 )
      Is there someway so that this could be donated into the public domain or something from day one?

      Maybe by making the source available under the GPL, and making the ability for different instances of the database to exchange information with each other be a part of the project?
      That way anyone with a T1 and a fairly large disc could have his own bookDb.

      That way, no single entity would be in exclusive control of the data.

      On the other hand no two databasers would be exactly the same.
      Hmm...
      Database design is not my field really, maybe I should shut up, and just write a few frontends to the db once someone has dreamt one up...
      • Maybe have each db query another set of dbs it is connected to if the book is not in the first one? A la Napster et al?

        • Re:Like this? (Score:2, Interesting)

          by danro ( 544913 )
          Sure, but the problem is making sure the data is consistent.
          Just because the ISBN is in both the querying database and the databases it uses as a reference doesn't mean the entry contains the same data.
          And if it doesn't, how should the db know which post is the more correct?
          Not a trivial problem to solve, you can't have the databases trust each other too much since you don't want som lame script kiddie getting pleasure from injecting lots of false data and watching it spread...

          But, like I said, this is not my field of expertise, I'm sure there are a lot of people on slashdot that know a lot more about the subject...
      • As a server-side app, it doesn't have to be distributed to others. So the GPL won't do any good. I like the interchange of info between databases, but that can be very hard to implement correctly. You'll run into all kinds of mismatches where you need to do the right thing (when do records denote the same book?). You can fix a lot of these problems by focusing on the ISBN, but you'll still run into inconsistent data and the like. There will also be security issues, you have to make sure that the guy who you synchronize with hasn't polluted his database with wrong data. Lastly, copying an entire database takes a lot of horsepower. You don't want people doing this to your database during busy hours.

        Apart from these technical considerations, it's very likely that one database will become the standard that everyone uses, even when there is more than one choice (everyone will use the most extensive, most correct database). I doubt that there will be many syncronizations into this database, most people will be interested in making a copy of it.

        All in all I think the best bet is to incorporate a feature that makes it easy to automatically dump the database to a mirror at a certain time (midnight or so). There's no good way to make sure that this actually get's done though, but you can always write a screenscrape application to punish the organization that doesn't supply you with a dump (scraping the entire database will hurt them bad). When the organization goes nasty, you can switch over to a copy and try to beat them with an open alternative.
    • A great point, and I think that freeDB is doing a fantastic job.

      I'm thinking that if someone took the freeDB model and translated it to handle books or movies, or whatever, it would be a very good thing. One thing that I have wanted for ever is similar to MoodLogic [moodlogic.net], to categorize and index MP3s. Having that open source, coupling with a database would rock. Even with books, it's very useful.

      Soon as my life calms down with work (Oh in say 3 years) that will be the first open source project I start if there isn't already one. Something to manage movies, mp3s, cds, and books. My goal is to have it tie into robotics so it links to a DVD changer to play the song, or loads the mp3 on the computer, or pulls the book out of a bookshelf and monitors whats out on loan, etc.

      Just my little perfect world.. i'm also building a router in a tree pot so take my suggestions with a large grain of salt :)
      • A few categorization tools in development are using the MusicBrainz [musicbrainz.org] catalog. Bitzi [bitzi.com] (warning: I'm an interested party) is attempting to create an open metadata catalog for all content that can be encoded in files.

    • Re:The Example of CDDB (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ewhac ( 5844 )

      Form a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation that owns and operates the database. Draw up the corporate charter such that the database must be maintained for the sole benefit of the community, that users' activity will never be tracked, etc.

      My (limited) understanding is that the law makes 501(c)(3) charters very hard to change. As such, new management can't just waltz in and "sell out" the company and its resources.

      The only remaining danger is that the organization becomes politically influential and either leverages that influence to the detriment of the community, or itself comes under the influence of corrupt organizations.

      Schwab

  • I'm not sure that an online free book database becomes very relevant until I start reading books in a digital format. CDDB, freedb, and DVD Profiler are all for digital media while books are still primarily in paper format.

    I will continue using my book shelf for the time being.

  • singlefile (Score:4, Informative)

    by yum ( 24177 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @06:25PM (#3354208) Homepage
    ==> [singlefile.com]

    • Re:singlefile (Score:2, Informative)

      by gadfium ( 318941 )
      That's a pay service costing US$20 per year.

      From its website:

      Singlefile is an easy-to-use web-based service that helps you organize the books you own, the books you are reading, the books you've read and the books you want to read.

      You can use it to keep track of the books you've loaned to friends, or books you haven't bought/read yet, or to find out how many non-fiction paperbacks with 275 pages you own, etc. Singlefile is also great for keeping a record of your books for insurance purposes. And, in affiliation with Amazon.com, you can discover and buy new books you might enjoy based on the authors in your collection!

      I think a free service is what is wanted by the original poster!

    • 37signals (Score:3, Insightful)

      by fm6 ( 162816 )
      Impressive web design. Pretty and usable and minimalist use of HTML. Rare to see all that in one place.

      Seems to be a project of 37signals [37signals.com]. Some interesting work in their portfolio.

  • Cue::Cat (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Roadmaster ( 96317 )
    Yeah, and let's enable the database so that you can point your cue::cat at the book's barcode and up pops the relevant page with information about which book you're reading.

    Ain't it easier to just look at the cover??

    • Re:Cue::Cat (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Lemmy Caution ( 8378 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @06:29PM (#3354243) Homepage
      What if you could scan it, it brings a copy of that record into your local database, prints out a book plate, and the can set up a borrowing schedule for it? That'd be cool. And very helpful for small libraries.
    • Too bad the Cue::Cat makers [digitalconvergence.com] are no longer in business. Good idea, bad timing I suppose.
    • Ain't it easier to just look at the cover??

      I think you just hit the nail on the head.

      The point of CDDB like databases is to create a global database of meta data for digital content so to make it easy for people to assign consistant meta data to their content...basically, not to have to type in track info when ripping a cd to mp3.

      With books, the physical medium doesn't translate well into a digital form. Sure, there will eventually be e-books, but the current form in which books are sold is hard to make a digital copy of (which is easier, ripping a cd or OCRing 500 or so pages and then spell checking it?)

      So, absent digital copies of books that are without meta data, this project wouldn't be particularly useful. The only reason you'd want to search such a database is to find a book to buy. So let Amazon pay the $30k/yr and just search there.

      • Re:Cue::Cat (Score:4, Insightful)

        by raincrow ( 61535 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @09:32PM (#3355499)
        In the same way that people research CDDB and IMDB to see who has recorded what and who has directed what and who starred in what, people also want to see full author bibliographies, checklists for book series, edition lists (there are people who collect multiple editions and sometimes even printings of the same book). Then the hunt begins. There are more uses of catalogs and libraries than just adding metadata to your own collection. There's also research.

        Take a look at the SFDB [sfsite.com] for an example.

  • Readerware (Score:2, Interesting)

    by chennes ( 263526 )
    I use Readerware, and while I grant to you that it is "inefficient" in some sense (and yes, the interface sucks), the folks working on it are continuously updating the thing, and its ability to search about 2 dozen different sources for book information is really wonderful. Since most people don't play books by putting them in a slot in their computer, there isn't really that much demand for a really high-power archiver. I personally just scan my new books in and click "update" - Readerware finds everything I need, no problem, and I don't have to do it that often. Chris

  • What's a Book? (Score:1, Funny)

    by pyrrho ( 167252 )
    Oh, you mean the hardcopy of a web page?

    just a bad joke! don't bother to flame me my submodernpostcomslashdotantireactionary freinds... I read bound printouts all the time.

  • bip ain't that great (Score:2, Informative)

    by brechin ( 309008 )
    I used to work for the local (independent) college bookstore (Illini Union Bookstore [uiuc.edu]), and we had access to Books in Print in both dead tree (very old) and web-based (shared a login with our university's library) formats. While the information was usually very good and very reliable, there were many problems.

    Do you have any old books? BIP can be very unreliable when trying to find books published before 1980. Even still, BIP doesn't include information on all the different editions of a particular book, so your ISBN may not yield any results.

    Speaking of no results, the search feature on BIP is incredibly unreliable. You can search for an ISBN, not find a book, then search for the title and come up with a book with the ISBN you just searched for. Try putting that ISBN back into the search box and it doesn't work! Sometimes you get what you want, sometimes you don't.

    Aside from searching for basic bibliographic information (title, author, illustrator if any, publisher info, etc.), pricing and availability information (available for most books in BIP's database) are not up-to-date as they report them to be. Many times we ordered books and the publisher told us the books were priced very differently from what BIP told us. Good luck getting an accurate estimate of how much your book collection is worth!

    In the end, a book database like cddb's cd database or even better, like imdb's movie database including reviews and ratings would help people organize and maintain their private collections, and would help bookstore employees get their job done. If only the book database software our bookstore used had the ability to access an outside database like that!

  • Why do we need this? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bstadil ( 7110 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @06:31PM (#3354255) Homepage
    I have come to the conclusion that there is not a well developed internet book database.

    Why do we need this? Books are not searchable by nature so making it easier to find information about a book still leaves the issue of how do we get access to it. Making an eBook DB makes some sense. The ISBN numbering has been in effect for a long time and you can find any book reference that has a write up or reference on the net via Google. Thirdly the research community has oddles of system for referencing articles and papers.

    • Books are not searchable by nature so making it easier to find information about a book still leaves the issue of how do we get access to it.


      Did I read that right? You mean that title, author, subject, date, and category are not searchable fields? Its impossible to search the contents of a book for patterns? Its not easy to store/index a book's content in the database itself?


      Perhaps you typed that wrong, or im misunderstanding you, but that statement sounds profoundly false.


      You might want to look into project gutenberg [promo.net]. Because they do that. (If copy restrictions were shorter, they would have tons more stuff too)

    • I think that the reson that we need this is to allow for a formatted, programatically accessible source of information. If you are just trying to find one book for your own use, it's not a big deal, but if you want to store the ISBN numbers of your personal collection and pull the other information from a central database, individual searches on google won't cut it. I image that you can find all of the information about each CD and track through google as well, but it would take a lot longer.

  • Would be good for small libraries worldwide (Score:5, Insightful)

    by line-bundle ( 235965 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @06:31PM (#3354259) Homepage Journal
    Some people ask `what is the point?'.

    My answer to that is the following: It would be nice to be able to lookup info about a book, given a small amount of information. Suppose you are a library and you want to catalogue books. Instead of having to type in all the information yourself you could just type in the ISBN and all the information get downloaded to the local catalogue.

    I have had to make a database and enter data for a library and that would make life a lot easier!.
    • There is already a company that provides just such a service: Online Computer Library Center [oclc.org] from which libraries can buy bibliographic records to load into their online catalogs (or print for their card catalog). OCLC recently purchased NetLibrary [netlibrary.com], a provider of e-books. NetLibrary was having financial difficulties, and OCLC jumped in to make sure all those libraries who "purchased" these e-books would still have access.

      Another source of Books in Print is through Gale Group [galegroup.com]. Many local libraries are purchasing access to the Gale Group databases (Books in Print, InfoTrac, etc) for their users. For instance, Virginia residents can type in the bar code number from their library card to get access to these databases from home.

      I work in a library, but I'm not a librarian.

    • Re:Would be good for small libraries worldwide (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Small libraries and the like can access OCLC [oclc.org]. OCLC provides a definitive copy of the books record. Can you imagine what would happen if some one tried to enter in their own data? Not only do books which have the same title have different ISBNs the data being entered would be subject to the interpritation of the person entering it (eg St. vs Saint)

      There are rules that need to be followed in order to maintain any sort of consistancy in record keeping. Remeber, a library isn't kept at all like your bookshelf.

    • Perhaps mentioning stuff like freedb isn't nearly as useful as mentioning IMDB [imdb.com]. IMDB is a really convenient thing if, say, you want to know who the great actors were in Attack of the The Eye Creatures [imdb.com] or what George Romero has directed [imdb.com].

      Something like that for books would rock.

  • The company responsible for Books In Print probably has a patent on a "list of books". :)
  • isbn.nu [isbn.nu] is something of a step in the right sirection...it doesn't sell books directly, so it's pretty much a disinterested party (even imdb isn't really that anymore, since it's an Amazon site). but It would be nice to have something more comprehensive, that covered also books not in print that were important, that would have comprehensive (as best as possible) listings of every edition (in English only) of, say, The Aeneid.

    maybe there isn't a widespread interest in this, and that's why it never developed. alt.rec.movies (or whichever usenet group) imdb grew out of obviously filled a need for lotsa people...why didn't this happen with books? maybe it's too late to start now.

    still, I'd be interested. as it stands now, people discuss movies, actors, etc in their blogs and link w/out thinking to imdb pages. for books, they end up linking to amazon (or B&N or, even more rearely, booksense). none of those sites give quite the same depth of info on a book as imdb does on a movie.
    • I'm trying to gather information about books on my site, The Virtual Bookcase [virtualbookcase.com]. It grew out of trying to make a database of my own books and at the same time doing projects at work regarding books and information about books. I try to gather reviews but I'm ofcourse limited to reviews that people enter (please enter more reviews!) or reviews that I can reuse (such as those from amazon). The amazon-affiliate linking helps recoup a bit of the costs (bandwidth, domain name) but the amount of time invested in the software for the site and the maintainance of the databases is of course never repayed. I do learn a lot in the process :) I'm now at a stage where I think the technical stuff can take care of itself for a while and I need to learn more about site design and usability and how to get other types of information on books such as press releases and general book news.

  • What's the Purpose? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rubinson ( 207525 ) <rubinson @ e m a i l.arizona.edu> on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @06:34PM (#3354271) Homepage
    What programs, if any, do those of you reading /. use to keep track of your books? If you were to start an open source internet book database project, what features would you include in it?

    What purpose would such a database serve? CDDB/freedb, for example, allow us to automatically download the album titles automatically. Saves everyone a lot of tedious work. Obviously, you're not going to be doing this for books.

    As a graduate student, I maintain a single text file of all articles and texts that I've ever referenced. Each entry has a unique identified which I use the UIDs in my own articles instead of typing the full reference. A shell script then updates then updates the references and BibTeX automatically generates the bibliography.

    I could see where it could be useful to have a centralized resource that could automatically download those references - but only if it was quicker/easier than typing it in myself (and that only takes a couple of seconds).

    What other purposes would such a database serve? How would it make my life easier?

  • A start (Score:3, Informative)

    by JasonMaggini ( 190142 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @06:34PM (#3354274)
    This site [isbntools.com] has some stuff on using barcode scanners (including the ever-popular cuecat) to catalog books...
    I personally would like to catalog my collection with a relatively decent amount of information, but who wants to sit there and type all that stuff in?
    I agree that the trick would to keep a database from going to the Dark Side like CDDB did...
  • Reply to this comment with contact info and we could start working on the details.

  • Free Library Databases - and a protocol (Score:5, Informative)

    by outlier ( 64928 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @06:38PM (#3354302)
    Most large university libraries have free (beer) databases that typically contain huge numbers of books (many that are not held by the library).

    For example, see mirlyn.web.lib.umich.edu and sign in as a guest and you can do all sorts of searches.

    These libraries typically use the Z39.50 [biblio-tech.com] standard to connect. Z39.50 is a pretty decent standard, and it is widely used, standardized, and allows you to connect to many many databases.

    Sounds like this could be what you're looking for.

  • Here are some useful links... (Score:5, Informative)

    by sailracer6 ( 262434 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @06:43PM (#3354326) Journal
    The UPC Database [upcdatabase.com]

    You can add entries here for ANYTHING with a standard UPC, so some books are in here. Very useful.


    The Book-Scanning Project [eblong.com]

    This guy wrote some Python scripts to convert UPC's to ISBN's - it can be done - and then feed them into Amazon's search engine. Very interesting, and he's already done it, so he has some experience.

  • Although it's probably just a small subset of what you're looking for, Project Guttenburg is a database of books which are out of copywrite. Since it only contains books out of copywrite, it is able to give you the book contents as well. Not useful for looking up the NY Times bestseller list, but if you need to look up something from The Art of War or Macbeth, see http://promo.net/pg/ and download the whole book as a text file.

  • What would really be great is having every book ever written on the internet in full-text (not just a summary), stored in a database (like google does for webpages.). Just imagine being able to type in a search phrase and being able to search the text of every book that was ever printed.

    I wonder about the possibility of this based on:
    1. storage space
    2. database efficiency for all that information
    3. most importantly: copyright laws.
  • Probably an agent provacateur for the Author's Guild trying to incite the Open Source community into writing a book tracking list for them to use to keep track the livelyhood-stealing activities of that awful Jeff Bezos and those bastards at Half-Price Books.
  • I have not followed freedb much, but I suspect the software that runs it could be modified to work with books. The Freedb software [freedb.org] is under the GPL and uses a MySQL database backend. Someone looking to procrastinate for a few days could probably have a working book database within a few days.

    --Ben
  • Wouldn't it be nice if you could take a digital photo of your bookcase and have it be automatically converted into a list of books?

    If such a database also had spine/cover info that let's a program do automated recognition, this would be possible. Then you could put them all up for sale. Or you could look up a book without having to keep your bookcase organized.
  • You can put your CD and your DVD into your computer, which is why it's handy to have an online database to auto-lookup the details. It's hard to put my copy of Good Omens into my 3 1/2 inch floppy drive, and who the hell would want to type in an ISBN number? And who would even remember an ISBN number? :)

  • Bookcrossing.com (Score:2, Interesting)

    by chris_mahan ( 256577 )
    Check out bookcrossing.com. You can have your own bookshelf. Just type the ISBN, it retrieves the cover art, the author and all that. You can fix it too.

    I use it, I like it.

  • feed this page an isbn, get XML out (Score:5, Informative)

    by Pinball Wizard ( 161942 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @06:59PM (#3354447) Homepage Journal
    if you are looking for XML data, feel free to use this page [page1book.com](asp at the moment, but it will soon be redone in perl).


    The important thing is it outputs XML, so if you want to build an interface to it for your own application, you can. Its not a 100% complete database, but it should give you basic information on any book available.


    I wrote this specifically for external search engines back when XML was the new hot thing. Funny thing is, the sites that search us usually want an FTP data feed, so this doesn't really get used much. But again, feel free(be reasonable if you use a bot - maybe limit your bot to a search every 5-10 seconds, please).

  • Writing my own (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Thekim ( 170616 )
    I am writing my own catalog with MySQL/Perl for several reasons.

    1) I don't have enough space in my tiny room to fit all my books into bookcases, but with the db I can put some books in boxes in the closet and easily find out in which box a certain book is.
    2) I want my books sorted according to a standard classification system but still be able to have them in my own way in the bookcase. Currently I use a heavily outdated (1987) Swedish classification system that the kind folks at my school library lent me. So I'll definitely take look at the Dewey Decimal system [tnrdlib.bc.ca] mentioned earlier.
    3) I have books in several languages and with a db I can have the same kind of information on different books in different languages in the same place. Thus I don't have to look up the romanization for the Kanji (Chinese charachters in Japanese) more than once. But of course it will store the original Kanji-titles as well.
    4) I can easily create lists of books that I want to buy and, that friends have borrowed from me or books that I have borrowed.

    When it's finished I want it to handle 2-bit languages in a nice way, be compliant with existing standards for book classification, both Swedish and international, allow for easy list creation and have a nice interface.

  • Use Z39.50 (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Many large library databases are searchable with a protocol called Z39.50. There is a Perl module implementing this protocol (among many others). Check out http://perl.z3950.org/ for full docs. The reason you get back complex stuff when you do a search should be obvious if you ever read the cataloging information about a book in a library catalog. There's a lot of stuff there. If you're using this for making a catalog of your private library, do a "known item search", for example using ISBN.

  • Project Gutenberg (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jumex ( 19292 )
    Have you ever heard of Project Gutenberg [promo.net]? It is basically doing what you are talking about and has been since the 1970's. They have a pretty good collection, and I would totally suggest anyone interested in an internet book DB to help them out with their cause. Although I see your point that a full index of all books (without content) would be a pretty cool thing to have.
    • PG is great for old public-domain books that volunteers have digitized. For newer books whose authors have intentionally made them free-as-in-something, see my own site, The Assayer [theassayer.org]. (The Assayer runs on open-source Perl with DBI, but I doubt the code would be useful to anyone else --- it was my very first Perl app, and it shows...)
  • I think a book database could be pretty interesting just as a central ISBN/publisher/year/author reference. (Yes, Google is wonderful, but you never know what context an ISBN match is going to be in; the whole point of having a central resource in consistency.) But then, my wife and I have a living room lined with bookcases, and the bookcases are starting to encroach on our hallway and bedroom too. :)

    But you could do some pretty interesting stuff with an IMDB-style book database, at least for fiction. I'm picturing entries for fictional characters and locations, along with birth and death dates, even user-moderated (Wiki?) biographical sketches where available, cross-referenced by author. Instant encyclopedia of Arkham/Castle Rock... cool!

    But even outside of a single author's oeuvre, there would be great cross referencing stuff you could do.

    Say I read and really liked a detective novel that takes place in Los Angeles in the 1940's.
    It would be pretty cool to have a reliable database where I could plug in the ISBN of the book I just read, and get a cross-referenced list of other books set in the same time/place/genre - without the busy, sales-oriented "You might also like" mess you get from a site like Amazon.

    Maybe include a user comments section, if there's some sort of meta-moderation available - point-missing/inane/poorly written Amazon user reviews instantly send me into a blind rage :)

    -Oh, and you could do automated metasearches with the new Google API, too :)

  • Actually, there's work being done on one... (Score:4, Informative)

    by ExplodingTeakettle ( 574203 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @08:28PM (#3355106)
    What you're basically proposing is a way to share bibliographic metadata -- not the book itself, but table of contents information, library holdings, etc. There are standards amongst libraries for doing this (ISO Z39.50 and AACR2--both of which are horribly abstruse and generally a pain to deal with). Dr. Rob Cameron, along with a small group of Simon Fraser University [www.sfu.ca] students, has been working on the seeds of a system for sharing bibliographic metadata -- see http://www.usin.org [usin.org]. This basically extends the URI standard to support ISBN and ISSNs, initially to support scholarly communication, but also making it possible to create what we call "personal bibhosts" with support for annotations, shared notes, etc. Among other things, we've implemented searches across various worldwide libraries to obtain and compare bits of bibliographic info, and so forth. Yes, you still run into the problems of inconsistent data for a given ISBN/ISSN (as a previous poster pointed out), but hey...you have to start somewhere!
  • Something like this is going to have initial and ongoing costs. Even if it is developed under an open license, there should be some provision made for commercial use and licensing, but not ownership, of the database once completed.

    The alternative is to have the project run out of money, and be bought, probably by a business, and then commercialized anyway.

    The best projects will always be those that balance the commercial aspects with the public interest aspects.

    It is an excellent idea, however.

  • I have one in development right now... (Score:3, Informative)

    by ChrisKnight ( 16039 ) on Tuesday April 16, 2002 @11:04PM (#3356004) Homepage
    I am currently building a database if ISBN numbers with the following records: Title, Author, Publisher and Media.

    It hadn't really occurred to me that others might like access to this kind of data as well.

    Seriously, is there enough interest that it might be worth the effort to add a request interface that returned an XML object of the data that I have? Would others contribute to it?

    I currently have 294,652 completed entries in my database. I'm out of work and bored, and I'll make it publicly accessible if I get some feeback indicating that it would be worth the effort.

    -Chris
  • I built one but it is very free-form and may not be what you want.

    My objective was to do a quick keyword search on a list of 100,000 records from several different sources. Generally I have one line per book, and while some of the indices provide more information that is all I use.

    I didn't want to spend the time to do a real database job and I wanted to use Perl regular expressions to do a quick keyword search within author and title text. So I keep recent indices next to the search program compressed variously with zip, gzip, or bzip2. I can direct the system to make a single text file which contains the unpacked text all appended together and compressed again. It will also list stats for each file.

    Its main function is to wait for a keyword to be typed in, and it will immediately (PIII/450MHz Linux Inspiron 7.5K) display a numbered list of matching books, in alphabetical order grouped by indice. You can then select certain numbers from the list, or reduce the number of records by adding more keywords. This is sufficent for me and has helped me discover unknown titles and new authors because of its way of narrowing down on information. Perhaps if I had more structured files I would have used Perl's BoulderIO which has solved huger problems of library science in merging genome data files, see bio.perl.org.

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