LibraryThing APIs
From WikiThing
[edit] What's an API?
APIs are ways for one computer to talk to another, simple ways of getting and giving data without having to share programming code. See Wikipedia.
For tab-delimited and CSV exports of your library see the Tools tab. For our RSS feeds see here.
[edit] Easy Linking
You can link to a work page on LibraryThing just by throwing the ISBN into the URL.
You can also link to a book by putting the book's title in the URL. Spaces can be represented by underscores, + signs, or even simply as spaces (more here).
- http://www.librarything.com/title/voyage_of_the_dawn_treader
- http://www.librarything.com/title/the+educated+imagination
- http://www.librarything.com/title/tender violence
[edit] APIs (Application Programming Interfaces)
[edit] JSON Books API
See LibraryThing JSON Books API
- LICENSE: Must be run as Javascript on user's browser, not fetched by a server; cannot be stored, except for browser caching. Commercial use requires a hard (non-JS) link to LibraryThing on every page that returns results.
[edit] JSON Works API
See http://www.librarything.com/thingology/2008/03/first-cut-works-json-api.php
- LICENSE: Must be run as Javascript on user's browser, not fetched by a server; cannot be stored, except for browser caching. Commercial use requires a hard (non-JS) link to LibraryThing on every page that returns results.
[edit] ThingISBN
ThingISBN takes an ISBN and returns a list of "related" ISBNs—ISBNs from the same "work" (ie., other editions and translations).
- Format is identical to OCLC's xISBN.
- Sample URL: http://www.librarything.com/api/thingISBN/0441172717
- Read the announcement and a follow-up
- LICENSE: Non-commercial use (see below)
- See also Projects currently using ThingISBN
[edit] ThingLang
ThingLang takes an ISBN and returns the language of the book.
- ThingLang uses language codes from MARC records and from the Group Identifiers embedded at the start of the ISBN format.
- Results are in the form of a three letter MARC language code
- Read the announcement, with examples and details.
- LICENSE: Unrestricted (see below); hit it no more than 1/second
[edit] ISBN Check
Takes an ISBN; validates it and returns the ISBN10 and ISBN13 form.
- Under no conditions may you call this "ThingISBNCheck"
- See announcement
- License: Unrestricted (see below); hit it no more than 10/second
[edit] ThingTitle
ThingTitle takes a title and returns a list ISBNs from the most likely LibraryThing "work," the LibraryThing title and a link to the LibraryThing work page.
- Announcement, with examples
- LICENSE: Non-commercial use (see below)
- UPDATE: ThingTitle is currently down (1/27/08)
[edit] Data feeds
Feeds are available here: http://www.librarything.com/feeds/
[edit] ThingISBN
- A feed version of the above API.
- LICENSE: Non-commercial use (see below)
[edit] AllLibraryThingISBNs
- A simple list of all ISBNs in LibraryThing.
- LICENSE: Non-commercial use (see below)
[edit] WikipediaCitations
- A list of ISBNs to Wikipedia articles (described on the blog).
- LICENSE: Non-commercial use (see below)
[edit] Terms of Use
- By using any of LibraryThing's APIs you agree to these terms of use.
- "Non-commercial" restricts the data to non-commercial use only; commercial use requires our written permission.
- "Unrestricted" data can be used for both non-commercial and commercial use.
- Except for ISBN Check, you can make only one request per second on an API; if you're going to hit it more than 1,000 times/day, you must notify LibraryThing
- APIs are provided "as is," without any promises or guarantees of any sort. You're on your own!
- We reserve the right to change these terms and generally make things up as we go along.