Look up book author, title, and publisher by isbn in Library of Congress db.

book_request.erl

-module (book_request).
-export([http_loc/1]).

-include_lib("xmerl/include/xmerl.hrl").


%% Look up book author, title, and publisher by isbn  in 
%% Library of Congress db.
%% http://www.loc.gov/standards/sru/resources/lcServers.html

%% Thanks to erlang-questions responsse frome Darach Ennis and
%% Dave Thomas - http://pragdave.me/blog/2007/04/15/a-first-erlang-program/

%% Use: 1> inets:start().
%%         ...
%%      2> book_request:http_loc("9780982589205").
%%      {"Prentice, Lloyd Roland","Freein' pancho", "Writers Glen Publications"}


loc(ISBN) ->
   "http://lx2.loc.gov:210/lcdb?" ++
   "version=1.1" ++
   "&operation=searchRetrieve"++
   "&query=bath.isbn=" ++
   ISBN ++
   "&maximumRecords=1" ++
   "&recordSchema=mods".

http_loc(ISBN) ->
   {ok, {_Status, _Headers, Body}} = httpc:request(loc(ISBN)),
   {Xml, _Rest} = xmerl_scan:string(Body),
   [ #xmlText{value=Author}] = xmerl_xpath:string("//namePart/text()", Xml),
   [ #xmlText{value=Title}] = xmerl_xpath:string("//title/text()", Xml),
   [ #xmlText{value=Publisher}] = xmerl_xpath:string("//publisher/text()", Xml),
   {Author, Title, Publisher}.