> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Eric Lease Morgan > Sent: 22 August, 2006 16:24 > To: [email protected] > Subject: [CODE4LIB] worldcat > > Is there a public Z39.50/SRU/SRW/Web Services interface to > WorldCat or OpenWorldCat? > > I would like to create a simple search engine to query > "Other's books", and *Cat seems like a great candidate. > > Inquiring minds would like to know.
I'm not sure about a Z39.50/SRU/SRW interface to WorldCat, but you can access WorldCat via URL queries and it appears that the data comes back as an XHTML document. So... you could hack something together with a little XSLT to simulate an SRU interface. Since this isn't documented anywhere, at least that I could find, with a little digging and hacking I came up with the following: URL query: <http://worldcat.org/search?q={your+query+goes+here}>, e.g. <http://worldcat.org/search?q=database+design> Results XPath: /html/body//[EMAIL PROTECTED]'tableResults'] /html/body//[EMAIL PROTECTED]'tableResults']/tr/[EMAIL PROTECTED]'result'] Next set of results: <http://worldcat.org/search?q=database+design&start={next+number+in+result+set+goes+here}&qt=next_page>, e.g. <http://worldcat.org/search?q=database+design&start=11&qt=next_page> Andy.
