(I'm posting this to the list rather than replying privately, because the WorldCat API can sometimes be pretty opaque and it might be useful to have this in a somewhat public location.)

The WorldCat Search API only works at the title level, and won't return volume-level data. If that's OK, then you can get Illinois holdings data in XML through the following URL:

http://www.worldcat.org/webservices/catalog/content/libraries/OCLCNUMBER?servicelevel=full&location=IL&frbrGrouping=off&maximumLibraries=100&startLibrary=1&wskey=APIKEY

Replace OCLCNUMBER with a number and APIKEY with an API developer's key (you have to apply for one if no one locally has one). You can just copy and paste the URL into a web browser to get results, so it would be possible to create the URLs in Excel or a text editor and then do the checks by hand. The XML is ugly but more or less human readable. My institution uses a set of Perl scripts to automate this sort of thing. A programmer or web developer could probably write up a simple local web interface in PHP (or Python or some other language) in an hour or two. 

Documentation with a lot more options is here:
http://www.oclc.org/developer/develop/web-services/worldcat-search-api/library-locations.en.html

Hope this helps!

Nate Florin
Center for Research Libraries


-----Original Message-----
From: David Malone [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Friday, March 20, 2015 9:44 AM
Subject: [Off-topic] WorldCat/OCLC API question / query holding libraries

I've got an off-topic query. Is anyone on the list aware of how we may utilize the OCLC API for WorldCat to create a query form/engine that could determine the holding libraries for a particular title/volume? We are an Illinois library that wants to streamline a weeding workflow that determines whether a title may be the last copy in the state. It would be great if we could extract a list of OCLC numbers and run a query in OCLC to determine if we are the last holder. I recognize that this may miss identical volumes on other OCLC numbers, but it will be better than going item by item.

David B. Malone, MLIS, CA
Associate Professor
Buswell Memorial Library
Wheaton College
501 College Ave.
Wheaton IL 60187-5593
630.752.5707  | 630.752.5987 FAX
[log in to unmask]  |  http://library.wheaton.edu

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