Querying the library of congress using Search/Retrieve via URL

SRU (Search/Retrieve via URL) is an interesting REST Web Service protocol.

Enough technobabble. Let’s run an example.

Suppose you want to retrieve the data that the library of congress has on a book called “First Impressions of the New World” by “Trotter Isabella Strange”, you issue the following query (follow the hyperlink for the XML result):

(dc.title=”First Impressions of the New World”) and (dc.creator all “Trotter Isabella Strange”)

You want to use this in software? Download my corresponding Perl and Python code examples: srucodeexamples.zip.

Further reading: See the wikipedia entry or even better, check the refbase entry.

(Special thanks to Owen Kaser for making me discover this exciting new technology.)