Hello Nicholas,
maybe that it's a bit late but I've found that for this kind of things,
OpenRefine (ex Google refine) works fine if the catalog you want to
query allows passing parameter in the url; You can get the HTML code of
the catalog pages and easily detect if it show a record or not. I've
done it for different projects and found it a good answer to this problem.
You can then replay the scenario with openrefine on a new set of data /
isbn. I don't know if it can be scripted but as shown after the
paragraph starting with "So now we have our cleaned data file" on this
blogpost :
http://blog.ouseful.info/2013/07/26/using-openrefine-to-clean-multiple-documents-in-the-same-way/
Hope this helps.
Sylvain
Le 13/08/2014 12:20, Nicholas Brown a écrit :
Apologies for cross posting
Dear collective wisdom,
I'm interested in using automation software such as Macro Express or iMacros to feed a
list of ISBNs from a spreadsheet into Copac or Worldcat and output a list of those that
return no matches in the results screen. The idea would be to create a tool that can
quickly, although rather roughly, identify rare items in a collection (though obviously
this would be limited to items with ISBNs or other unique identifiers). I can write a
macro which will sequentially search either catalogue for a list of ISBNs but am
struggling with how to have the macro identify items with no matches (I have a vague idea
about searching the results screen for the text "Sorry, there are no search
results") and to compile them back into a spreadsheet.
I'd be keen to hear if anyone has attempted something similar, general advice,
any potential pitfalls in the method outlined above or suggestions for a better
way to achieve the same results. If something useful comes of it I'd be happy
to share the results.
Many thanks for your help,
Nick
Nicholas Brown
Library and Information Manager
[email protected]
+44 (0)20 7749 1125
www.iniva.org
