Guide to Identifiers
Best practices were discussed at http://webservices.itcs.umich.edu/mediawiki/oaibp/index.php/IdentifyingTheResource although that site has been frozen since. In mid-2007, the DLF was reabsorbed into the CLIR to form https://www.diglib.org. Not sure where current best practices abide.
Below are two markdown tables—one for Author Identifiers and one for Edition Identifiers—that list the identifier, a brief description, an example, and a link to additional documentation.
Author Identifiers
| ID | Description | Example | Docs |
|---|---|---|---|
| OLID | Open Library author record | OL1234A | Open Library API |
| LCAuth | Library of Congress authority ID | https://id.loc.gov/authorities/no2013090983 | Library of Congress Authorities |
| VIAF ID | Virtual International Authority File identifier | e.g. 12345678 | VIAF |
| ISNI | International Standard Name Identifier | e.g. 000000012146438X | ISNI |
| ORCID | Open Researcher and Contributor ID | 0000-0001-2345-6789 | ORCID |
| WD ID | Wikidata item identifier | Q6290611 | Wikidata |
Edition Identifiers
| ID | Description | Example | Docs |
|---|---|---|---|
| OCLCid | OCLC control number | e.g. 12345678 | OCLC Help |
| LCCN | Library of Congress Control Number | e.g. 2002022641 | LCCN Namespace |
| OLID | Open Library ID | OL234M | Open Library API |
| OCAID | Open Content Alliance ID (Archive.org item identifier) | e.g. 12345678 | Archive.org |
| HTID | Hathi Trust ID | e.g. HT123456789 | Hathi Trust Data |
| Google ID | Google Books ID | zyTCAlFPjgYC | Google Books Partner Help |
Open Library identifiers on Archive.org
We used to connect Archive.org <=> OpenLibrary.org items using a metadata field called openlibrary on Archive.org and a field called ocaid on OpenLibrary.org (which stands for Open Content Alliance ID — see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Content_Alliance).
@mek noticed these openlibrary IDs were very stale and had not been used for a while. So 2 new fields were added (in attempt to deprecate openlibrary field on Archive.org). These are openlibrary_edition and openlibrary_work.
If I recall @hank and @judec informed me the openlibrary metadata key is actually being used in certain places within our derive pipelines — this code has never been updated to use openlibrary_edition and openlibrary_work.
Retrieving Archive.org data for an Open Library identifier
For any given openlibrary_edition one should be able to use this ID pull the MARC from Open Library to confirm if the metadata matches. Or even more easily — let’s say you have a book on archive.org called… jungleauthoritat00sinc
And its metadata lists its openlibrary_edition as OL3561303M.
If you use https://openlibrary.org/books/OL3561303M.json it will return the json API data for that book and you can check the values without necessarily even needing the MARC
OpenLibrary
{
covers: [253146],
ocaid: "jungleauthoritat00sinc",
key: "/books/OL3561303M",
identifiers: {
goodreads: ["54855"],
librarything: ["3414"]
},
lccn: ["2002026536"],
isbn_10: ["039397779X"],
}Archive.org identifiers
<isbn>9780393977790</isbn>
<isbn>039397779X</isbn>
<openlibrary>OL3561303M</openlibrary>
<external-identifier>urn:asin:039397779X</external-identifier>
<external-identifier>urn:acs6:jungleauthoritat00sinc:pdf:0c7cfd74-4178-4606-aad6-82c7dd226004</external-identifier>
<external-identifier>urn:acs6:jungleauthoritat00sinc:epub:e2b0f076-2d77-44b4-bbbd-75e14c654c2c</external-identifier>
<external-identifier>urn:oclc:record:1035882283</external-identifier>
<boxid>IA1138320</boxid>
<identifier>jungleauthoritat00sinc</identifier>
<containerid>S0022</containerid>
<identifier-access>http://archive.org/details/jungleauthoritat00sinc</identifier-access>
<identifier-ark>ark:/13960/t9n33ns5x</identifier-ark>
<oclc-id>473022932</oclc-id>
<oclc-id>492015570</oclc-id>
<oclc-id>50143929</oclc-id>
<oclc-id>611841594</oclc-id>
<oclc-id>750905675</oclc-id>
<oclc-id>845516453</oclc-id>
<oclc-id>849008372</oclc-id>
<lccn>2002026536</lccn>