Is anyone using OCLC’s Kindred Works API?
OCLC Research has developed an experimental service that provides a list of items similar to an item of interest. The prototype service uses various characteristics of a sample work, such as classification numbers, subject headings, and genre terms, to retrieve related resources from WorldCat. This approach is called content-based recommendation.
The recommendations are accessible through a user interface and through an application programming interface (API). The user interface, Kindred Works, provides basic search functionality; users can search by author, title, ISBN, or OCLC number. The recommendations may include books, ebooks, audiobooks, music, and video materials.
The recommendations can be customized to the collection of an individual library by adding the library’s OCLC holding symbol to the query. This feature is limited to libraries that participate in WorldCat.org. The API is intended to be used by software developers to integrate recommendations into another service or application, for example, a library catalog or other discovery interface.
It’s pretty darn neat looking. I also didn’t read through the entire terms of service – does anyone know if you have to be an OCLC member to take advantage of the API?
