Trying to get ISBNs from a list of book titles and authors

March 3, 2018 5:37 AM

I've got a properly formatted csv file of ~100 book titles and authors from my Audible account. I'd like to automate getting a ISBNs for as many of these as possible. Is there a way to input a list of book titles somewhere and get back (any) matching ISBNs? I'm trying to add my Audible books to Goodreads and would like to not do this manually.
posted by iamkimiam to Technology (8 answers total)

https://isbndb.com
posted by XMLicious at 6:23 AM on March 3, 2018

Response by poster: Thanks but I'm trying to avoid looking up each book title manually (either in ISBNdb or in Goodreads).
posted by iamkimiam at 9:17 AM on March 3, 2018

I don't know for sure, but have you tried librarything? I recall years ago that they were very dedicated to cataloging collections quickly.
posted by greermahoney at 9:28 AM on March 3, 2018

It looks like isbntools will do this. You probably want at least a passing familiarity with the unix command line and/or python, though.
posted by hoyland at 11:45 AM on March 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

These are the complete docs for isbntools.
posted by hoyland at 11:46 AM on March 3, 2018

Would these instructions for adding Amazon purchases to your goodreads maybe work?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.askdavetaylor.com/how-to-add-amazon-books-to-goodreads/%3fezoic_amp=1
posted by itsamermaid at 8:04 PM on March 3, 2018

If you don't mind sharing your list (you can do it in private via MeMail), I'd be happy to help you automate this using ISBNdb/Goodreads..!
posted by vert canard at 11:47 AM on March 4, 2018

Response by poster: Thanks for the help. Neither Amazon or the ISBN tools could do this, but I ended up manually adding the titles over the course of several days. Now I can add things as I go — seems the easiest and fastest way forward.
posted by iamkimiam at 3:39 PM on April 2, 2018