Well, I mean, what I want as a client is a cover image if one exists for any ISBN. Duplication will exist, data will never be perfect, although we can hope OL's algorithms will get better at detecting and merging em, realistically there's always going to be some duplication, even if only intermittent on a given set.
So either it's done on the server-side, possibly pre-computed, so you can make one call and get a cover if available anywhere. Or you've got to do it client side, even though it's a pain. I haven't looked at the API in a while, but if were designed so you could get multiple hits back from an ISBN query, and each hit in the single original response included a cover URL if available (or a Y/N on whether cover is avail and the ID you can use to construct the URL) -- then it would still only be one HTTP request. More than one HTTP request slows down my app, but one HTTP request with this information, it won't effect performance and won't really be that hard on the client side to just look through the responses for the first cover. So ideally I'd hope OL API can at least support that, with one HTTP call? ________________________________ From: [email protected] [[email protected]] on behalf of John Miedema [[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 8:50 PM To: Open Library -- technical discussion Subject: Re: [ol-tech] book cover images that disappear The nice thing about the newest books API is that provides a single call for all necessary data. OB3 moved to this api for that reason, helping to resolve performance problems that came from making additional calls. I'm not sure I would want to build extra calls and looping in my client code to resolve what is really a data duplication issue. That said, I guess it would be better to have some cover than no cover. On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 7:06 PM, Jonathan Rochkind <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Is there still a non-deprecated cover-image-specific API? For cover images specifically, it would clearly be optimal if an ISBN lookup returned a cover image from ANY OL record having that ISBN listed, if multiple then pick the most recent or the oldest or whatever. I would imagine there already is an OL general purpose API that returns multiple hits for an ISBN lookup, when there are multiple hits? If so, when writing a client app, the best bet would be to use that one, and have your client code look through all the hits until a cover is found, instead of stopping at the first one. ________________________________ From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] on behalf of [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 6:40 PM To: Open Library -- technical discussion Subject: Re: [ol-tech] book cover images that disappear Thanks Anand and George, the second ISBN is the newer record, and as you said, that's what is getting picked up. I think the right answer is for the API to return the older record. My reasoning is that an entry of a duplicate ISBN represents a shoddier entry because whatever process was used to enter it (manual or automatic) should have checked for duplicates, and since it did not, it is less trustworthy. Perhaps a thin argument, but it's just a suggestion. Not sure what else you would do. Maybe the condition is rare enough not to worry about. I will leave in your good hands. I got around this by using the OLxxxx ID instead, which is unique. John 2010/9/26 John Miedema <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>: > > Great. Re: the revision, > > > > For OB version 3, all OL IDs will get passed in as "OLID:12345" so that > > would look like "OLID:12345@9". Right? Yes. I think I can even support OLID:12345@2010-09-23, but I'll try keep that a feature for later. > > Will that work for other IDs that can be used in version 3: e.g., > > ISBN:23456@9, LCCN:34567@9, and OCLC:456789@9? No. It won't work for ISBNs because the OLID returned by the ISBN query might change over time. Anand On , Anand Chitipothu <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > Hi John, > > > Open Library is showing 2 books with ISBN 9780307387172. > > > http://openlibrary.org/search?q=9780307387172 > > > The covers.openlibrary.org<http://covers.openlibrary.org> picks the first one > with cover. Which seems to be working fine. > > > http://covers.openlibrary.org/b/isbn/9780307387172-M.jpg > > > The OL Books API picks any one book with the matching ID. It looks like the > Books API is picking the book without the cover and that is creating you the > trouble. > > > http://openlibrary.org/api/books?bibkeys=ISBN:9780307387172 > > > I searched for "9780307387172" in OL dump created on 2010-11-30 and found > just one entry with 6 revisions and last modified on 2010-08-12. > > > /type/edition /books/OL9434361M 6 2010-08-12T06:30:18.650706 > {"number_of_pages": 224, "weight": "8 ounces", "covers": [1165319], > "latest_revision": 6, "edition_name": "Reissue edition", "title": "Into the > Wild (MTI)", "languages": [{"key": "/languages/eng"}], "subjects": > ["Discovery And Exploration (General)", "Outdoor Life", "Travel", "Biography > / Autobiography", "Travel - General", "Regional Subjects - West", > "Travelers", "Travel / Adventure", "Special Interest - Adventure", "Adventure > and adventurers", "Alaska", "Biography", "United States", "Wayfaring life", > "West (U.S.)"], "type": {"key": "/type/edition"}, "physical_dimensions": "8 x > 5.1 x 0.7 inches", "revision": 6, "publishers": ["Anchor"], > "physical_format": "Paperback", "last_modified": {"type": "/type/datetime", > "value": "2010-08-12T06:30:18.650706"}, "key": "/books/OL9434361M", > "authors": [{"key": "/authors/OL237257A"}], "created": {"type": > "/type/datetime", "value": "2008-04-30T09:38:13.731961 "}, "identifiers": {"goodreads": ["441013"], "librarything": ["1199218"]}, "isbn_13": ["9780307387172"], "isbn_10": ["0307387178"], "publish_date": "August 21, 2007", "works": [{"key": "/works/OL1974535W"}], "first_sentence": {"type": "/type/text", "value": "Jim Gallien had driven four miles out of Fairbanks when he spotted the hitchhiker standing in the snow beside the road, thumb raised high, shivering in the gray Alaska dawn."}} > > > > The dates seem to be matching with the history view. > > > http://openlibrary.org/books/OL9434361M/Into_the_Wild_(MTI)?m=history > > > This indicates that there is no data loss. > > > Anand > > > > On 25-May-2011, at 6:08 PM, John Miedema wrote: > > Hi George. I had an OpenBook pointer to ISBN 9780307387172 on November 11, > 2010. The record originally had no cover image for OpenBook, so I added one > and could confirm the image was there in my WordPress post using OpenBook. > I'm also certain I add an author to the record and it is also gone. It has > happened before, over a few years, and always for cover images that I > manually added. I don't often have to add new covers so I don't have many > examples, but it is always for these records. The wipe usually happens some > weeks or even months after I modified the record. Hope that helps, John > > > > > On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 1:23 PM, George Oates > [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > Hi John, > > > > Odd - There's no note of you in the edit history there... Are you sure it was > > that particular edition? > > > > g > > > > On 5/23/11 8:13 PM, John Miedema wrote: > > > Hi folks, I have noticed on several occasions that book covers I manually > > add > > > will disappear later on. > > > > > > Here's one that disappeared. Can't say exactly when. > > > > > > http://openlibrary.org/books/OL24645176M/Into_The_Wild > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Ol-tech mailing list > > > [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> > > > http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-tech > > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to > > [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> > > _______________________________________________ > > Ol-tech mailing list > > [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> > > http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-tech > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to > [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> > > > > > -- > John Miedema - [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> - > http://johnmiedema.ca - 613-366-7960<tel:613-366-7960> > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Ol-tech mailing list > [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> > http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-tech > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to > [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> > > > > _______________________________________________ Ol-tech mailing list [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-tech To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> -- John Miedema - [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> - http://johnmiedema.ca - 613-366-7960<tel:613-366-7960> _______________________________________________ Ol-tech mailing list [email protected] http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-tech To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to [email protected]
