Comparison of Internet Book Databases?

An anonymous reader asks: "There have been several attempts at creating a book database like the IMDB. I list several [in the full article] and I would like to know which you like best, and which you use most often. What are the features you find the most useful out of the book databases you use?" "Here is a list of free Internet book databases:

IBDOF - The Internet Book Database of Fiction
IBList - The Internet Book List
Parchayi.net - Parchayi.net Book Database
SciFan - SciFan
FantasticFiction.co.uk - Fantastic Fiction

And I know of only one commercial one, the FictionDB, which is the largest among all the ones that have been listed.

Does anyone know of any others?"

Comments

Not listed

[WedgeTalon]

I use a couple not listed...

bn.com and amazon.com

Supplier Databases

[Monkeys!!!]

Working in a bookstore allows me access to book supplier databases such as iPage. While they may not have the scope of the publicly listed databases, they do include books they haven't been published yet.

Re:Supplier Databases

[TopShelf]

For further info on iPage, head here. There's a free basic subscription which gives access to over 2 million titles...

ISBNDB

[Bogtha]

ISBNDB make all their data available through a web service as well. That's a killer feature as far as I'm concerned.

Re:Amazon.com

[CRCulver]

All true. Unfortunately, as soon as amazon decided to stop selling a book, or for whatever reason, the listing will be gone.

Not so. While that sometimes happens with CDs, book listings stay around forever. Amazon contains books concerning obscure fields, published in microscope quantities, and fallen out of print decades ago. I study linguistics, which means I read a lot of dusty old monographs, and I never have a problem finding them on Amazon.com to review. Take Brian Joseph's The Synchrony and Diachrony of the Balkan Infinitive , an obscure Cambridge University Press publication from 1983 really targeted just at libraries and never cheap enough for individuals. It still has an Amazon.com listing.

Personally, I'd rather a book database be not owned by a commerical entity that can list whatever it wants.

IMDB is now owned by a corporate entity, and while the quality has decreased, there's no problem with disappearing listings.

The Online Books Page; LoC catalog

[Anonymous Coward]

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/ - Listing over 25,000 free books on the Web

For dead tree books, you can search the LoC online catalog: http://catalog.loc.gov/

ISFDB

[AussieVamp2]

http://www.isfdb.org/ Apart from the very handy website, there is a nice MySQL database dump that is very easy to grab and use yourself. It helped me find some old novels that had read that I couldn't remember the name of, but knew when they were published. A few queries, and there you go.

LT, Picarta, Google, European Library

[bbc]

http://www.oclcpica.org/
http://books.google.com/
http://www.librarything.com/
http://www.theeuropeanlibrary.org/

Were you looking for something specific?

From LT's FAQ:

"LibraryThing uses Amazon and libraries that provide open access to their collections with the Z39.50 protocol. The protocol is used by a variety of desktop programs, notably bibliographic software like EndNote. LibraryThing appears to be the first mainstream web use."

don't forget library resources

[shalla]

I'm a big fan of Amazon.com when looking for book information, but I'd also like to point out that public libraries often pay for access to book databases for their patrons, many of which can be accessed from home.

My library subscribes to Novelist and Novelist K-8, which can be awesome when looking for fiction.

Many libraries also pay for patron access to the Books in Print database.

Finally, if you're determined enough, you can find some interesting things in WorldCat, the union catalog of OCLC libraries. This is now searchable from Google and other places.

LibraryThing

[booch]

LibraryThing is pretty cool. It's a member-built database, but it links back to Amazon to get a lot of the details.