Retrieve a bibliographic record from WorldCat by ISBN using the OCLC WorldCat Search API
domain: oclc.org · 4 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Steps
Register for an OCLC WSKey scoped for WorldCat Search API access via the OCLC Developer Network
Send a GET request to /webservices/catalog/content/isbn/{isbn} on www.worldcat.org, including the wskey as a query parameter
Set the Accept header to request the desired response serialization (e.g., MARCXML or Dublin Core)
Parse the single bibliographic record returned for that ISBN
Known gotchas
This classic wskey-based Search API (v1) has been superseded by WorldCat Search API v2, which instead authenticates with an OAuth2 client_credentials access token
A WSKey without a sufficient OCLC subscription tier may return only summary metadata rather than the full record content
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