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

Amazon.com

[zhiwenchong]

I'd have to say that Amazon.com probably has the largest online book database in the world, with perhaps the exception of loc.gov.

The most useful feature of the Amazon database is the user reviews. I usually check out the reviews on Amazon before I buy a book. Many of the reviewers are quite good, and trolls are usually easy to spot. I don't think it would be easy to replicate what Amazon has to offer. Yes, it's a commercial database, and you can't add titles to it, but those things don't really bother me, given that I have been able to get information on any book I have ever wanted on Amazon.

It would take one heck of a free book database project to beat it.

Re:Amazon.com

[Tyir]

All true. Unfortunately, as soon as amazon decided to stop selling a book, or for whatever reason, the listing will be gone. Personally, I'd rather a book database be not owned by a commerical entity that can list whatever it wants.

One thing that should have been listed is Wikipedia, you'd be impressed with how many books there are. I tend to check Wikipedia on information on books before Amazon, althought it is still not nearly as comprehensive.

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.

Re:Amazon.com

[MythMoth]

I'm not as enthusiastic about Amazon user reviews. There are several big problems:

There is a tendancy for books to be reviewed by the people who like them. The gushing enthusiasm syndrome is at its worst in the Big Fat Airport Book genre of science fiction. Disregarding reviews with substantial spelling or grammatical defects ameliorates this problem.

Reviews by shills are depressingly common. These are the worst sort, because they're often quite literate and to the point. They're hard to spot, too, mostly showing up if you've noticed the name of the reviewer in some other context in close association with the book's author's name.

(Begin main rant)

Finally there's the "Top NNN reviewer" syndrome. Some of these are authentic, but a lot seem to be by idiots who scan the provided publisher review for basic details and paraphrase them. They always award 5 stars (to get a "this review was useful for me" click from the author?) and they sometimes are laughably off base.

For example, from the 5 star review for a book of mine:

"This should not be your first book on computers..."

Well no. That's because it's called "Building Portals with the Java Portlet API" and someone completely ignorant of computers wouldn't choose that in preference to an obvious beginners book on computing unless they were doing a LOT of drugs.

The guy who wrote that review is a "top ten" reviewer. His recent reviews covered such subjects as ASP.NET, Reproductive Biology, Architecture, the Confederate Horse Artillery, Corporate Finance, and Cultural anthropology.

None of these reviews contain any facts from outside the editorial reviews. Every one of his last 50 reviews was a five star reviews. Either he's REALLY enthusiastic about a LOT of subjects, or he's some complete tosser who's writing reviews of books he's not read in order to get whatever benefits acrue from being a Top 10 Reviewer.

And if he's honest, then I'm a leopard.

Amazon, of course, don't care because it helps to sell books when naiive users see a five star review from an apparently disinterested third party for a book they were considering buying.

Personally, however, I'm happier with the readers who disliked my book, awarded it the minimum one star rating (how come you can't give zero?) but were writing an honest review. Even if they are eejots :-)

I wish Amazon would consider the longer term effect on their reputation and kick out any top reviewer who's taking this approach. But I won't hold my breath.

(End rant)

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.

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.