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Maniphest T413785

Use open library api in citoid to search for title / other metadata than just ISBN
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Description

Currently open library is used by Zotero to search for ISBNs, however we have additional capability in citoid to search for the title of a work.

Historically we used worldcat (T352571) to perform a title or citation lookup, however now we only search crossRef.

But most books are not in crossRef, so the results are irrelevant if the person is looking for a non-academic book.

This API would work: https://openlibrary.org/dev/docs/api/search

  • Enable open library look up for open search
  • Then rank resulting citations by similarity to original input

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Event Timeline

Mvolz created this task.Jan 5 2026, 3:09 PM
Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptJan 5 2026, 3:09 PM
Mvolz mentioned this in T382446: Return >1 results from search in citoid service in the absence of a url, doi, isbn or pmcid/pmid.Jan 5 2026, 3:10 PM
Mvolz updated the task description. (Show Details)Jan 5 2026, 3:13 PM
Johannes_Richter_WMDE subscribed.Jan 5 2026, 3:30 PM
Mvolz added a comment.Jan 6 2026, 12:39 PM

I asked (with my volunteer hat on) about importing this data to wikidata here: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata_talk:WikiProject_Books#Import_OpenLibrary_data_dumps? but I think the one comment on data messiness was enough to discourage that route. Using the api seems the most expedient and lets the user additionally modify or not use the metadata if it's wrong.

Mvolz added a parent task: T413679: Revise Citoid “Automatic” tab UX to clarify text input performs a search, not a definitive lookup.Jan 6 2026, 12:43 PM
Mvolz updated the task description. (Show Details)Jan 6 2026, 12:45 PM
Mvolz mentioned this in T413279: Convert Reference Suggestion - restrict to references that are just a link.Jan 8 2026, 12:53 PM
Mvolz moved this task from Backlog to Service on the Citoid board.Jan 15 2026, 11:01 AM
Mvolz added a project: Platform Engineering.
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