how to find what isbns are in use

Question

I am trying to find a list of what ISBNs are in use. I guess I could scrape a website like Amazon but that would waste a lot of bandwidth. Is there a better (free) way?

Answer 1

ended up using partial list from http://my.linkbaton.com/isbn/

Answer 2

Maybe you could use the remote API for isbndb.com.

Trying to keep an enormous ISBN list up-to-date yourself is quite a huge task if you ask me.

Answer 3

Just for the record: note that if you actually want an ISBN for your publication, you need to go to the official agency in your country. In the US this is http://www.isbn.org/ , but it varies by country. In Australia, for example, it is here.

Answer 4

This might help: What is the most complete (free) ISBN API?

As the accepted answer states there is also an API to search Amazon but it's not actually supposed to be used in the way you wish to.

Answer 5

Yes, try isbndb.com