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I'm working in a very limited environment and I cannot use any API that requires authentication. The API at https://openlibrary.org would be perfect, but it does not serve a book summary. All I need to do is get a book summary (akin to the back cover of a book) from an ISBN number that I pass.

I have to use javascript because I only have access to the client-side code.

tyler
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  • Asking for recommendations is off-topic in most of [se] network. Please, refer to the [help] to know what's on-topic in each site. – brasofilo Nov 14 '13 at 13:42
  • I don't agree that he's looking for vague recommendations here. He has a very specific requirement and is looking for very specific examples. – Ryan Ransford Nov 14 '13 at 13:57

2 Answers2

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Based on Amazon's Product Advertising API documentation:

You should be able to, without authentication, pull up the Product Description for a book using a request to:

http://webservices.amazon.com/onca/xml?
    Service=AWSECommerceService&
    AWSAccessKeyId=[AWS Access Key ID]&
    Operation=ItemLookup&
    ItemId=[ISBN]&
    IdType=ISBN&
    ResponseGroup=EditorialReview&
    Condition=All&
    Timestamp=[YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ]&
    Signature=[Request Signature]

Yes, you may have to sign up for an Amazon access key, and there may be rate-limiting which applies to your request, but this should get you there without maintaining a user authentication session.

Ryan Ransford
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  • However, the Product Advertising API may be deprecated (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1595624/amazon-products-api-looking-for-basic-overview-and-information#comment13332210_1693376), look for Amazon Marketplace Web Service (MWS)(https://developer.amazonservices.com/index.html) instead. – Ryan Ransford Nov 14 '13 at 14:08
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A Google Web Search API might be helpful too (https://www.google.com/search?q=0596002068&)

Then consequently scrape the first result using something like https://www.mashape.com/warting/scrapegoat#!endpoint-scrapePrerendered

I was able to get the summary of the book like below:

enter image description here

Chris Ismael
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