If you only want to make an annotated list of all your books then use LibraryThing. It's fast, easy to use, and the data is reliable. You can simulate multiple discrete lists by using tags. It costs $10, which is not much compared to other things you've paid for. You could also use All Consuming, which is free and does non-books, but was really slow when I tried to use it (which was a long time ago). You could also use one of the 200 bookshelf applications sure to show up on Ning. You could buy Delicious Library for your Mac, which uses a webcam as a barcode scanner. You could, in short, use whatever incarnation of this particular project tickles your fancy, because your fancy is not tickled by external APIs.
If you want to build a list of books and then use it as a data structure, then Amazon wish lists are the only game in town operating on a higher level than a Z39.50 binding: see for instance this NYCB from last year, before I got REST religion. Amazon provides some interesting data not available through other APIs, like prices and sales rank, but you can join on ISBN to get that data, so a lot of the things in the series will be applicable to people with Tyrannioware or other Z39.50 systems. 
![[Comments]](/nb//themes/Default/comments.png "4 comments")
(4) Tue Oct 11 2005 07:58 PST Fun With Amazon Wish Lists I.V:
I should talk about the target audience for this series before more authors of online bookshelf programs leave comments in my entries. This series is not for bibliophiles per se; rather for bibliophiles who want a programmable API to their bibliophilia.
(4) Tue Oct 11 2005 09:16 PST Overworked:
How many "business hours" would you say are in a "business day"? I would say eight. But someone told me they would call me back in 24-48 business hours, which makes it sound like every hour in a business day is a business hour.
