Is there really not some API out there that knows about all published books? Paid, if necessary?
squeegee_scream•9mo ago
I think there are, the author says so, but according to author they don’t make clear if a book is a new edition, translation, etc of a previously published book. So getting a list of published works wherein “A Book Title” is a single result and “A Book Title 2nd edition”, “A Book Title 3rd edition”, etc are not listed in addition to “A Book Title”, doesn’t exist. I would think it’s possible to write a layer of logic that takes a list of published books and removes extra editions, translations, etc to get what the author wants but perhaps the problem is more difficult than I realize
Y_Y•9mo ago
When is a book the same as another?
paulwarren•9mo ago
we built this "work-level" catalog at Margins [1] -- 12mo+ of work -- book data is the messiest data I've worked with in my 10+ years of building things with data
I spent a couple of years working on this as a hobby and, yeah, book metadata is difficult to explain just how irregular it actually is. It might actually be worse than people names.
That being said, the reason I was working on this was because I wanted a simple and effective way to get alerted to new books published by authors I want to track, can this work for that?
paulwarren•9mo ago
As a feature within our app, probably Q2/Q3 this year; we want to finish backfilling historical books before turning actual notifications on
As an API for you to query yourself for free, not for a while (but on the long-term roadmap!)
wredcoll•9mo ago
There is absolutely not such an api. For one thing, nobody actually knows because nothing stops random people from publishing a book at any time.
For another, the major book publishers like amazon want to prevent anyone else from having their data.
Beyond that, book metadata is probably the least standardized thing I have ever seen in my entire life.
Titles, subtitles, editions, editors vs authors, series...
Scarblac•9mo ago
I thought ISBN numbers might be somewhat centralized. But I don't know anything about the domain.
wredcoll•9mo ago
The short answer is that isbns are sold more or less like ipv4 addrs. Companies buy a block and then some get assigned to books.
precompute•9mo ago
It'd probably be easier to scrape wikipedia or goodreads.
The author believes that LLMs are toys and sets out to show that you can get some useless results if that's what you're looking for. Tiresome polemical exercise, but it does have the virtue of brevity.
dullcrisp•9mo ago
We may need to start putting trigger warnings on articles that mention LLM skepticism.
signa11•9mo ago
they are not ?
michaelcampbell•9mo ago
Recognized the domain; Lars' documentation of the Ding! NNTP reader in emacs from... 30(?) years ago was one of the few pieces of doc that had me audibly laughing as I read it.
Scarblac•9mo ago
squeegee_scream•9mo ago
Y_Y•9mo ago
paulwarren•9mo ago
[1] iOS app to track and discover books: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6737528718
wredcoll•9mo ago
That being said, the reason I was working on this was because I wanted a simple and effective way to get alerted to new books published by authors I want to track, can this work for that?
paulwarren•9mo ago
As an API for you to query yourself for free, not for a while (but on the long-term roadmap!)
wredcoll•9mo ago
For another, the major book publishers like amazon want to prevent anyone else from having their data.
Beyond that, book metadata is probably the least standardized thing I have ever seen in my entire life.
Titles, subtitles, editions, editors vs authors, series...
Scarblac•9mo ago
wredcoll•9mo ago
precompute•9mo ago