Library Thing, Delicious Monster, and why aren't all ISBN known?

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Dec. 29th, 2006 | 05:32 pm

To say I have a lot of books is too under value the phrase "a lot".

At last move I had more then 36 crates of books, that was three years
ago. Today? I am not sure, though I have started to catalog all of
them with Delicious Monster.

I even bought the bluetooth barcode scanner :)

Delicious Monster just uses Amazon, so I am at the mercy of Amazon's
database. At this point I have almost all of my computer related
books cataloged (missing about 90 books that I need to complete), and
all of my graphic novels. This means I haven't touched my geology
text books or my science fiction collection.

The problem?

ISBN and UPC.

Namely, Amazon isn't a complete repository. Sure, it misses some
graphic novels, but it has also missed about a dozen O'Reilly
published books as well (according to Delicious Monster...).

So what am I going to try now? I just shoved the entire dump of my
ISBN into Library Thing to see if it has any better luck with finding
titles.

It seems that a very useful project would be for someone to create a
complete master library of ISBN and UPC. Sure, it would be huge, but wouldn't
it be worth it? Think about all of the applications you could enable
if you did this. From poking around on the web I see a few attempts
at doing this, but no one seems to have pulled this off (and yes I do
realize that this is more then just a slap a MySQL database in place
with some attempts to keep out spam project...).

Just imagine, a train spotting for UPC codes :)

The next wikipedia like project could be just a step away...

Update: Library Thing really rocks, it found all of the books that Delicious Monster could not find. This is a first for me... within 30 minutes of creating an account I paid the $25 lifetime membership.

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Comments {15}

Alan Morgan

(no subject)

from: [info]stormerider
date: Dec. 30th, 2006 02:17 am (UTC)
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Well, I haven't used LibraryThing, but I did use ReaderWare a while back. Even used the old :CueCat barcode scanners. Amazon was the prime reference, but they also pulled from other sources, including the Official Library of Congress.

Most ISBNs should be on file with the OLOC (granted, they'll probably only be there if the publisher was compliant with actually sending a copy to the OLOC like they're supposed to when assigning an ISBN... so it won't be 100%).

In any case, perhaps that's something you can look at?

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Brian "Krow" Aker

(no subject)

from: [info]krow
date: Dec. 30th, 2006 02:51 am (UTC)
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I would personally like to see more open databases of information. Stuff like ISBN, barcodes... all of this should be publicly available on the web for people to write applications against.

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Mark Atwood

(no subject)

from: [info]fallenpegasus
date: Dec. 30th, 2006 07:01 am (UTC)
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IIRC, there *is* a UPC Wiki.

A complete searchable dump of the ISBN and the UPC/EAC database is something that Google really ought to do.

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Brian "Krow" Aker

(no subject)

from: [info]krow
date: Dec. 30th, 2006 07:25 am (UTC)
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I see a couple of projects to do this, but I don't see anyone making a real dent.

You are right about google, it should make this information available.

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(no subject)

from: [info]jamesd
date: Dec. 30th, 2006 08:01 am (UTC)
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If you're still having trouble let me know and I'll ask a research librarian I know to take a look at the problem.

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Brian "Krow" Aker

(no subject)

from: [info]krow
date: Dec. 30th, 2006 06:25 pm (UTC)
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With getting UPC to ISBN information?

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(no subject)

from: [info]jamesd
date: Dec. 31st, 2006 08:26 am (UTC)
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With any aspect of the project that remains troublesome.

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Brian "Krow" Aker

(no subject)

from: [info]krow
date: Dec. 31st, 2006 05:40 pm (UTC)
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The UPC database just lists "book", what someone needs to add to it is the corresponding book information.

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(no subject)

from: [info]jamesd
date: Jan. 13th, 2007 03:20 pm (UTC)
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Sorry, she didn't know of any better UPC to ISBN resource, not even asking other librarians for help.

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Ysa

Delicious Library

from: [info]ormtarika
date: Jan. 1st, 2007 04:18 am (UTC)
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I have had similar problems with Delicious Library; amazon definitely has some BIG holes in their database... also I've found that UPC's are sometimes used interchangeably for paperbacks or hardcovers. Also, I've found an upsettingly large percent of the time I'll have to enter the data by hand.

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Menolly

(no subject)

from: [info]nolly
date: Jan. 2nd, 2007 09:31 pm (UTC)
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I *heart* LibraryThing. It's one of the primary reasons I wanted a phone with a usable KB and web access, actually -- I can check my library before I buy a book, so I don't buy things I already have.

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Brian "Krow" Aker

(no subject)

from: [info]krow
date: Jan. 2nd, 2007 09:51 pm (UTC)
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This is my primary need... not to buy books I already have.

This also means not buying books I have already read (which is a bit easier since I remember books...). What I run into is the problem of my backlog reading list. The books that are stacking up :)

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Menolly

(no subject)

from: [info]nolly
date: Jan. 2nd, 2007 10:01 pm (UTC)
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Exactly. The unread books were the first ones i cataloged in LT. I just tag them unread in addition to whatever other tags fit, and remove that tag once I've read them. Tagging makes so much more sense to me in this context than old-style cataloging.

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(no subject)

from: [info]henryandanais
date: Jan. 15th, 2007 02:28 am (UTC)
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So, would you recommend Delicious?

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Brian "Krow" Aker

(no subject)

from: [info]krow
date: Jan. 24th, 2007 07:15 am (UTC)
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Yes, I think it makes for a nice way to archive books locally, which I believe there is still a need for. If anything, it is a better interface for getting your information into LibraryThing.

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