<$BlogRSDUrl$> Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. Author/Speaker/Consultant
Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. Author/Speaker/Consultant
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Wednesday, February 23, 2005  

xISBN Search
http://www.oclc.org/research/projects/xisbn/

xISBN is a library web service that supplies International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs) associated with individual intellectual works represented in the OCLC WorldCat database. Give it an ISBN, and it returns a list of associated ISBNs. OCLC Research's experimental web service supports automatic expansion of ISBN queries. The assumption is that people wanting an item should get all associated editions and printings of that item when they search a database like a library catalog or an online bookseller's database. The xISBN service is based on OCLC Research's FRBR activities (FRBR is a model for grouping bibliographic records for works) and the world's premiere bibliographic database, OCLC WorldCat. The OCLC Research FRBR algorithm was used to build tables of ISBNs for all intellectual works represented in WorldCat. The xISBN web service was then built to provide a useful means to query these tables: when a user has one ISBN, they can send that value to the service which then returns a string of all ISBNs for the work. The ISBNs returned from the service can in turn be re-used in an "or" query to a bibliographic database to improve the chances of a user finding any/all instances of the work in a given database. So a user finding an item of interest at Amazon (for example) could conveniently query his/her local library online catalog to find out if any editions or printings (hardback or paperback, first printing or third printing, and even cases where various titles have been used) of the item are held by the library. This has been added to Research Resources Subject Tracer™ Information Blog. This has been added to Student Research Subject Tracer™ Information Blog, This will be added to Academic Resources 2005 Internet MiniGuide.

posted by Marcus Zillman | 4:05 AM
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