So the xISBN service will give you the workset and basic metadata about each item in that workset.
http://xisbn.worldcat.org/webservices/xid/isbn/0596002815?method=getEditions&format=xml&fl=* You can get 1000 request/day without even having to get an affiliate ID. Another possibility is the inline Schema.org markup in WorldCat.org. You can link into WorldCat by ISBN - http://www.worldcat.org/isbn/0451462645 Basic metadata is there in RDFa. There is actually a little demo bookmarklet which grabs the metadata from a Schema.org encoded page and sends it over so it can be added to Goodreads. - http://www.oclc.org/developer/prototypes/schemaorg-markup-extractor I think the WorldCat.org option is better because it is a little closer to getting work level metadata. Karen On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 11:57 AM, Ross Singer <rossfsin...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Jan 21, 2013, at 8:04 PM, David Fiander <da...@fiander.info> wrote: > > The documentation for the APIs is weak, and it looks like it hasn't been > > updated for a while. Has anybody used them much, or know what the state > of > > ongoing development of them is? > > I am pretty sure that there is no ongoing development of Open Library. > Others may be able to provide more details. > > > > All I'm really looking for at this point is a way to convert an ISBN into > > basic bibliographic data, and to find any related ISBNs, a la OCLC's > xISBN > > service. > > You can't do this via the API, because there's no way to search for > work_id (at least none that I'm aware of). I was running an xISBN clone > with the OL data, but it stopped working when Talis shut down the > Platform... > > The dataset isn't that large, however. It may be worthwhile to download > it and create your own xisbn style services. It might be even better to > hack up something at Code4lib13 (or, elsewhere) to take the monthly dumps > and create a similar service. I imagine you're not alone in wanting this. > > -Ross.