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] Developer Key

A few of the LibraryThing APIs require a LibraryThing Developer Key. See each API for details. If you need one, go ahead and LibraryThing get one. The LibraryThing Developer Key has its own Terms and Conditions.

[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).

[edit] APIs (Application Programming Interfaces)

[edit] 1. 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.
Developer key: Not needed.

[edit] 2. 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.
Developer key: Not needed.

[edit] 3. 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)
Developer key: Not needed.
See also Projects currently using ThingISBN

[edit] 4. 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
Developer key: Not needed.

[edit] 5. 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
Developer key: Not needed.

[edit] 6. 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)
Developer key: Not needed.
Update: ThingTitle is currently down (1/27/08)

[edit] 7. Data feeds

Feeds are available here: http://www.librarything.com/feeds/

[edit] 8. ThingISBN

A feed version of the above API.
License: Non-commercial use (see below)

[edit] 9. AllLibraryThingISBNs

A simple list of all ISBNs in LibraryThing.
License: Non-commercial use (see below)

[edit] 10. 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.

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