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@edsu
Last active December 1, 2016 17:36
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A Python module for interacting with the experimental OCLC Worldcat Live API.
#!/usr/bin/env python
"""
This is mainly a demonstration of OCLC's experimental Worldcat Live API [1]
from Python. You should be able to use this module like so:
import worldcat_live
for item in worldcat_live.items():
print item["title"]
worldcat_live.items is a Python generator that will return recently cataloged
items, forever. Optionally pass in a poll_time to control how often to check
the Worldcat Live API for more results (default is every 10 seconds).
If you run the module directly you'll see new titles as they are cataloged
along with the name of the institution that cataloged them displayed on the
console. Sometimes you may notice the organization being displayed as
"None <None>" which is because WorldCat Live items are missing the instsym
sometimes [2].
[1] http://experimental.worldcat.org/xwwg/
[2] https://twitter.com/edsu/status/299469915906244608
"""
import json
import time
import urllib
import datetime
import xml.etree.ElementTree as xml
base_url = "http://experimental.worldcat.org/xwwg/rest/feed?format=json"
def items(poll_time=10):
"""A generator for new items added to Worldcat, it returns each item
as a Python dictionary that maps to the JSON response from the Worldcat
Live API's JSON response.
The poll_time is the number of seconds to wait before polling for more
results from the Worldcat Live API.
It does annotate the response with information about the organization
that cataloged the item in the item's "org" key.
"""
maxseq = None
while True:
url = base_url + "&start=seq-%s" % maxseq if maxseq else base_url
response = json.loads(urllib.urlopen(url).read())
for item in response["newrec"]:
if not maxseq or item["id"] >= maxseq:
# XXX remove this if we can rely on "title" being there
if not item.has_key("title"): item["title"] = None
item["org"] = get_org(item.get("instsym", None))
item["url"] = "http://worldcat.org/oclc/" + item["oclcno"]
item["created"] = datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(float(item["created"]))
yield item
maxseq = response["maxseq"]
time.sleep(poll_time)
orgs = {}
def get_org(org_code):
"""looks up a OCLC institution symbol and returns a dictionary of
information about that organization using the Worldcat Registry API.
"""
if not org_code: return {"name": None, "url": None}
if orgs.has_key(org_code): return orgs[org_code]
url = "http://www.worldcat.org/webservices/registry/lookup/Institutions/oclcSymbol/%s?serviceLabel=content" % org_code
doc = xml.fromstring(urllib.urlopen(url).read())
org = {}
org["name"] = doc.findtext(".//{info:rfa/rfaRegistry/xmlSchemas/institutions/nameLocation}institutionName")
org["url"] = doc.findtext(".//{info:rfa/rfaRegistry/xmlSchemas/institutions/nameLocation}infoSiteUrl")
orgs[org_code] = org
return org
if __name__ == "__main__":
for item in items():
print "[%s] %s <%s> %s <%s>" % (item["created"], item["org"]["name"], item["org"]["url"], item["title"], item["url"])
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