Amazon and Aleph OPAC

Tags: php , amazon , opac , aleph
Last Updated: Oct 30, 2009 00:48

Description
By using the Amazon webservices API you can embedd data from the bookstore in your OPAC. This example pulls Editorial reviews and bookcovers from Amazon based on a ISBN in the bibliographic record.

Author: Daniel Forsman
Institution: Högskolan i Jönköping
Year:
2008

License: BSD style
Short description: Use, modification and distribution of the code are permitted provided the copyright notice, list of conditions and disclaimer appear in all related material.
Link to terms: [Detailed license terms]

Skill required for using this code:
advanced

State
Programming language
Software requirements
Screen captures
Author(s) homepage
Download
Working example
Installation instructions
TO DO list
Known issues
Comments

State

Stable

Programming language

PHP5, Javascript

Software requirements

It is required that you have PHP installed on your Aleph webserver since the AJAX call has to be local due to security.

The Javascript framework Prototype is required for the AJAX (httprequest) call.

Screen captures

Author(s) homepage

http://www.bibl.hj.se

Download

See attachments

Working example

http://julia.hj.se/F/?func=find-b&request=php+oracle+ajax&find_code=WRD&adjacent=N&x=0&y=0&con_lng=eng

Installation instructions

1. Since we are going to use the Amazon Webservices you will need to register an AWS account and obtain a Access Key ID for you application. This requires that you read and accept the terms of use.

2. Download the javascript framework Prototype

3. Make Prototype available in your OPAC. We include it in meta-tags<Code sample>
<script type="text/javascript" src="path_to_where_you_put_it/prototype.js" ></script>
</Code sample>
4. You will need to provide a hook for the ISBN. Repeat the ISBN label (from edit-doc-999) in full-999-body. We don't use the field labels anymore so this is how it looks for us.

If you want the field label then this is a example of including the label, it is just a matter of repeating the variable:

5. You will need to decide where you want the Amazon information to appear. full-set-tail-XXX is where we put it. Add a ID for the amazon content.

6. With a javascript you read the DOM of the page and get the ISBN. Include the Javascript in full-set-tail-XXX. You can include the javascript (amazon.js) like this

or you can write the javascript inline, like in the following examples.

7. The ISBN is now stored in the xisbn variable. The next step is to pass that on to the PHP script that will query AWS. We do that with Prototype.

8. The PHP script receives the ISBN and passes it on to AWS. The result of the AWS answer is brought back to the OPAC page. Make sure that you include your application ID in the php script.

Tip sample

Info sample

TO DO list

Perhaps include some other data from Amazon... reviews, ratings etc. But that is kind of easy to include if you know about the AWS API, so if you want it look there

Known issues

If you have multiple ISBN (020a|) in your bibliographic view then the last one is the one that gets sent of to Amazon.

Comments