• Registered: 2014-09-04
  • Posts: 98

Topic: Database to manage a small school library

I am thinking of volunteering to write a database to manage the books in a small school.
they store books in three different rooms and have about 6000 books, but they only have the name and author so I will also need to scrape isbn numbers from a web service.

Has anyone here made something like this they would share or share ideas from?

I'm still trying to layout sane data tables so haven't done anymore that a few test. .

Anyways heads up - I may be asking wierd newbie questions for a while  smile

2 Reply by mathmathou (edited by mathmathou 2016-12-17 02:38:57)

  • Registered: 2015-02-24
  • Posts: 446

Re: Database to manage a small school library

Hello tim,


Interesting project you have there.


I've tried something like this a few weeks ago, and it's not that complicated. That was just a test on my part, that I stopped because most isbn database failed to find my books (old French science fiction mostly).g


Anyway, the fastest way is to use a handheld barecode scanner. Mine was USB and the result of the scan was directly displayed in an edit field (No code, I swear).


Then, on a button click, query an ISBN rest API and parse the result (often json or xml) for the details you want.


You even very often get a cover image encoded in Base64, but I haven't figured out yet how to decode it properly with MVD, so the best option still is to download it directly.


I' m available if you have questions, even if I probably won't have enough time to participate full time in the project, do not hesitate.


Cheers and have fun your project, it's highly feasible with MVD


Cheers


Math

I'm a very good housekeeper !
Each time I get a divorce, I keep the house
Zaza Gabor
  • Registered: 2015-02-24
  • Posts: 446

Re: Database to manage a small school library

A little more details : I had

- a tmp table to store isbn numbers awaiting web scraping
- a book table with titlé isbn, date and so on
- an author table, related to the book table on author I'd
- a saga table, related to the book table on it's id as well
- a site table with ISBN api URL


Then a bunch of scraping procedure, based on the API formats depending on the site I was querying.


I have a good experience in web scraping with MVD, fire your questions if you have some.



Math


PS : if you want to manage people taking books from the library, you'll also need student or customers or whatever you call them table and a table for books that are out with references to people taking the books, dates and so on

I'm a very good housekeeper !
Each time I get a divorce, I keep the house
Zaza Gabor
  • Registered: 2014-09-04
  • Posts: 98

Re: Database to manage a small school library

thanks for those tips!

  • Registered: 2014-09-04
  • Posts: 98

Re: Database to manage a small school library

if I scrape for isbn do you recommend isbn 10 or 13?

  • Registered: 2015-02-24
  • Posts: 446

Re: Database to manage a small school library

If I remember correctly, ISBN 10 is deprecated since 2007 or 2008 or so because it reached it's max number of books.

That does not mean it is not used anymore because millions of books have been published and coded with ISBN10.


I recommend using an API that can handle both like the one from Open Library (which is free to use and gives good details and the book covers in 3 sizes, 100 query max per 5 minutes) or the ISBNdb one which requires a registration and a personal key but is also free I think.


https://openlibrary.org

isbndb.com


Math

I'm a very good housekeeper !
Each time I get a divorce, I keep the house
Zaza Gabor
  • Registered: 2014-09-04
  • Posts: 98

Re: Database to manage a small school library

I don't have the ISBN's of the books and many are old and don't even have the slip cover anymore.  The information I have is only an excel spreadsheet with four fields - the author, the title, the status or condition of the book and which room it is located in.

I think I will try the open library first, maybe once that is working I can try isbndb it the first look up fails to find results. After several manual title searches I think I want to verify the results manually before it becomes a permanent record.

  • Registered: 2015-02-24
  • Posts: 446

Re: Database to manage a small school library

Hello timlitw,


Yes, old books published before the use of ISBNs are a pain to catalog. Fortunately, both API I mentioned allow you to query data based on book titles and/or authors.


Are you making progress ?


Cheers


Mathias

I'm a very good housekeeper !
Each time I get a divorce, I keep the house
Zaza Gabor