I’m beginning to think about ISBN numbers and the Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts. For example, I can add ISBN numbers to Alex, link them to my (fledgling) LibraryThing collection, and display lists of recently added items here:

Interesting, but I think the list will change over time, as new things get added to my collection. It would be nice to link to a specific item. Hmm…

[openbook booknumber=”9781593082277″] On the other hand, I could exploit ISBN numbers and OpenLibrary using a WordPress plug-in called OpenBook Book Data by John Miedema. It displays cover art, a link to OpenLibrary as well as WorldCat

Again, very interesting. For more details, see the “OpenBook WordPress Plugin: Open Source Access to Bibliographic Data” in Code4Lib Journal.

A while ago I wrote a CGI script that took ISBN numbers as input, fed them to xISBN and/or ThingISBN to suggest alternative titles. I called it Send It To Me.

Then of course there is the direct link to Amazon.com.

I suppose it is nice to have choice.