5 ms·

It is so bad!!! I use Nielsen's API, but the data is pretty rough, and you have to spend a lot of time cleaning it. Plus, the archaic industry standards around

by bwb 2y ago

It is so bad!!! I use Nielsen's API, but the data is pretty rough, and you have to spend a lot of time cleaning it. Plus, the archaic industry standards around genre are hard to translate to what readers use - https://www.bisg.org/complete-bisac-subject-headings-list https://www.bisg.org/complete-bisac-subject-headings-list. Ingrams and Bowker are the other big metadata providers. Ingram's is good but expensive, but the data faces the same issues.

matwood 2y ago
If you have an ISBN you can also check Worldcat, but at scale it's also probably not free. And if you're working with anything that might have an academic slant, Crossref can be useful. Book metadata is very challenging. Even the publishers of said books are pretty bad at delivering good metadata.
- rafram 2y ago
  WorldCat doesn't have an official API for anyone but member libraries, scraping the site is not fun, and the quality of the data isn't great (it's essentially bulk-imported from member libraries' catalogs). National databases like the Library of Congress are significantly better - WorldCat is best used as a fallback for books that aren't included in the high-quality databases.
  - bwb 2y ago
    Ya I do pull in LOC data, but its limited to a very small number of books. Good quality though.
compootr 2y ago
I forgot if Anna's archive contains metadata but that'd be my free-ish solution
- jamiek88 2y ago
  I thought Anna’s was dead?
  - tux3 2y ago
    The last blog post is from just a couple days ago. They're apparently setting their sights on a map of all known ISBNs, and hoping to turn the map from red to green
wood_spirit 2y ago
Do any of the sites use collaborative filtering for “uses who like x also like y” for a nice filter bubble? I imagine it complements or my even supersede tags. (Admit I haven’t looked at all the sites people are mentioning in the comments yet- lots of good leads!)
- bwb 2y ago
  ya, I do this; I am not sure what the other websites are doing, though. If you email them I bet they will tell you.
everybodyknows 2y ago
Interesting that Wikipedia considers "campus" and "varsity" to be novel genres, but neither of those words appears here on BISG: https://www.bisg.org/fiction https://www.bisg.org/fiction

by bwb 2y ago

matwood 2y ago

If you have an ISBN you can also check Worldcat, but at scale it's also probably not free. And if you're working with anything that might have an academic slant, Crossref can be useful. Book metadata is very challenging. Even the publishers of said books are pretty bad at delivering good metadata.

rafram 2y ago
WorldCat doesn't have an official API for anyone but member libraries, scraping the site is not fun, and the quality of the data isn't great (it's essentially bulk-imported from member libraries' catalogs). National databases like the Library of Congress are significantly better - WorldCat is best used as a fallback for books that aren't included in the high-quality databases.
- bwb 2y ago
  Ya I do pull in LOC data, but its limited to a very small number of books. Good quality though.

compootr 2y ago

I forgot if Anna's archive contains metadata but that'd be my free-ish solution

jamiek88 2y ago
I thought Anna’s was dead?
- tux3 2y ago
  The last blog post is from just a couple days ago. They're apparently setting their sights on a map of all known ISBNs, and hoping to turn the map from red to green

wood_spirit 2y ago

Do any of the sites use collaborative filtering for “uses who like x also like y” for a nice filter bubble? I imagine it complements or my even supersede tags. (Admit I haven’t looked at all the sites people are mentioning in the comments yet- lots of good leads!)

bwb 2y ago
ya, I do this; I am not sure what the other websites are doing, though. If you email them I bet they will tell you.

everybodyknows 2y ago

Interesting that Wikipedia considers "campus" and "varsity" to be novel genres, but neither of those words appears here on BISG: https://www.bisg.org/fiction https://www.bisg.org/fiction