>
> One problem we run up against frequently is that while it's trivial to get
> the OL ID for a given ISBN, it's harder for other identifiers - such as
> Amazon ASINs.
>
> Amazon ASINs (and plenty of other types of 3rd party identifiers) can
> currently be added to editions - but do you mean that it's hard/impossible to
> do the reverse-lookup via the API? If so, +1 to that request.
I hadn't realised that, or at least didn't think it was a core attribute of a
work. That might be what I'm talking about.
There certainly aren't many ASINs on OL at the moment (small, random sample
admittedly), and a stated policy might change that.
>
> Would OL consider building a DB of different IDs for works, to enable
> harmonisation?
>
> Are there many other third party ids for works? The only other one I can
> think of is a Wikipedia URL - but that's perhaps a link rather than an ID?
> (though again it'd be useful to be able to do reverse-lookups from links).
> Most ids seem to be at the edition level.
>
LibraryThing work numbers are a good existing thing - I tried to use them on
bkkeepr. OL can certainly do better. Not sure about links.
Personally, I think the future of reading is too fragmented to rely on or
possibly care about edition IDs like ISBNs: these are essentially commercial
SKUs for businesses. The interesting future is in identifying works, and
there's going to be a lot of translation needed.
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