Thanks for everyone's help on this issue, although I'm still struggling to figure out what's actually happening. To respond to questions and suggestions: 1) I am entering the ISBN without any hyphens or spaces. 2) We are talking about books for which the ISBN shouldn't have been reissued. Let's take the book "Chasing Harry Winston" by Lauren Weisberger, for example. Below is the MARC record in our catalog: LDR 01080cam a22002894a 4500 001 2008006696 003 DLC 005 20080807154700.0 008 080214s2008 nyu 000 1 eng 010 _a 2008006696 020 _a9780743290111 : _c$25.95 020 _a0743290119 : _c$25.95 035 _a(NjBwBT)bt2008012287 040 _aDLC _cDLC _dDLC _dNjBwBT 043 _an-us-ny 069 _a09912362 082 14 _aFIC _214 090 _aF WEI 100 1 _aWeisberger, Lauren, _d1977- 245 10 _aChasing Harry Winston / _cLauren Weisberger. 260 _aNew York : _bSimon & Schuster, _cc2008. 300 _a280 p. ; _c25 cm. 520 _aMaking a pact that they will change the things that most challenge them within a year's time, Manhattan friends Emmy, Leigh, and Adriana shed their downtrodden identities in order to pursue the high life. 852 1 _hF WEI _p34710000092498 _808132008 _9P25.95usd 935 _a08122008 999 _c11785 _d11785 952 _w2008-08-20 _p34710000092498 _r2008-08-20 _40 _00 _6F_WEI _911817 _bNDPL _10 _oF WEI _d2008-08-20 _8FIC _70 _c5 _2ddc _yBOOK _aNDPL Which does not retrieve an Amazon image or review. Of course, Amazon has all this info. You can see it all at the page: http://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Harry-Winston-Lauren-Weisberger/dp/0743290119/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219350647&sr=8-1 And if you look at the revelent portion of the page-- Product Details Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster (May 27, 2008) Language: English ISBN-10: 0743290119 ISBN-13: 978-0743290111 Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches --you can see that Amazon has the same ISBN numbers that I do! This is a book that came out in late May-- so I can't imagine what's going on here. Why are some of my items correctly interfacing with Amazon, while others aren't? I've honestly been pouring over MARC records trying to figure out the "magic" difference between books that retrieve hits on Amazon, and books that don't. But I'm stumped-- what am I missing? And are other libraries having similar issues, here? Or is it just me? Max On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 7:09 PM, Joe Atzberger <ohiocore@gmail.com> wrote:
The Amazon images are retrieved by ISBN, so you might want to check your ISBNs against the hits you get at Amazon. With older items, the likelihood of having been issued and reissued under multiple ISBNs is rather high.
I'll leave the question of where to catalog ISBNs for others to address.
--joe
On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 5:23 PM, Max Crowe <newdurhamlibrary@gmail.com>wrote:
Hi:
I'm a Library Director at a small library in New Hampshire. We just started using Koha (3.00.00.107), and we're using the AmazonContent function to have our catalog pick up book covers and reviews from Amazon. It works, but I can't help but notice that the hit rate for the interface is rather low-- there's a large number of items in our collection for which we aren't getting any book covers or reviews. This would be expected, certainly, for some of the older and more esoteric things in our collection. But I'm finding that even as I catalog new items-- Love the One You're With by Emily Griffin, for example-- they also aren't getting any hits from Amazon. (And, if you search Amazon, you can easily find the book cover and reviews.)
Are any other libraries using this function? If so, what sort of hit/miss ratio are you getting? Is there some field I should be using when cataloging to ensure this function works better?
Max Crowe, Library Director New Durham Public Library