Comments on: ISBN to cover photo

Question: ISBN to cover photo

cosmicbandito — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:29:17 -0800

How to turn a list of ISBNs into a folder of JPEG photos of those book covers?

I want to use photos of books in my library as a screen saver/ advertisement. I want to do this using the ISBNs. Is there an online tool that will take a list of ISBNs, pull the appropriate cover images from Amazon or another service, and dump them into a folder for me? I'm looking for functionality similar to Shelfari's bookshelf, but with JPEG output.

By: kiltedtaco

kiltedtaco — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 10:06:40 -0800

I'm not sure exactly how, but I think your best bet involves LibraryThing.

By: dogsbody

dogsbody — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 10:12:03 -0800

Data Crow is a library catalogue/database application which will do what you need, although it's obviously not the software's primary function. Just load up your books and the images will be stored in the application's data/images folder.

It says that you can import csv data (although I've never tried it), otherwise you may need to copy & paste each ISBN number individually, which might be a pain if your list is particularly long.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 10:25:20 -0800

I can only help with a small piece of the puzzle, but if all of your ISBNs are the nine digit ones (or are converted to nine digits), you can use this link

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/X

where X = the cover you're looking for

It returns a big jpg of that books cover with some other things.

Someone might be able to help you do something with this info.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 10:29:46 -0800

if you'd prefer to use booksense to do it...

13 digit Booksense image links are in the form
http://booksense-stores.booksense.com/images/books/XXX/YYY/FC123456789123.JPG

By: natabat

natabat — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 10:31:00 -0800

I think kiltedtaco's got it. I haven't tried this, but here's how I'd do it.

1) Sign up for an LT account.
2) Import your list of ISBNs.
3) Go through you library and select the correct covers. (optional)
4) Install Firefox and the DownloadThemAll extension.
5) LT created a page especially for projects like this: All your Covers (you'll probably need to be signed in)
6) Use DownloadThemAll to, well, download them all.

For more info:
* Tim from LT's blog post
* How to make a poster
* LT's Talk discussion about All Your Covers

By: drezdn

drezdn — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 10:31:07 -0800

(What follows goes with my last comment)

XXX is the last three digits from the right (in this case 123)
YYY is the next three from the right 789

You could create a page that displays all of your book covers by loading an array of values of your ISBNs (they need to be in the 13 digit form or converted to 13digit).

Then it takes the ISBN for each and generates an img link.

I have no idea how you could make that work as a screensaver.

By: cosmicbandito

cosmicbandito — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 11:10:11 -0800

Natabat's idea worked great with minimal effort. Thanks! Now if Amazon would just provide high res images of covers, I'd be a much happier man.

By: rachelpapers

rachelpapers — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 17:15:02 -0800

You could also use Amazon's API to do this.