Getting the link to a public bookshelf in Google Books

Question

Google Books offers to option to export as XML which can then be saved on my desktop. Is there a public link to this xml file?

I am using the XML continuously and rather have the most recent XML as opposed to the dated one on my desktop (especially in the case where I am at library computers).

I tried scraping the site but it does not work. I also been trying the Google Book Search API and have not been able to get it work properly

http://books.google.com/books/feeds/users/[USER_ID]/collections/library/volumes

This returns a relatively empty xml file (My bookshelf is set public) but a public search

http://books.google.com/books/feeds/volumes?q=football+-soccer

Returns information.

Answer 1

Here is the link to the API: https://developers.google.com/books/docs/v1/using#WorkingBookshelves

The URL that you need is:

https://www.googleapis.com/books/v1/user/{userId}/bookshelves/{shelf}/volumes

That will work as long as the shelf is public, otherwise you have to have an API key by putting this GET variable on the end:

?key={yourAPIKey}

Answer 2

After some tinkering and searching the following query will return the results I want.

http://books.google.com/books/feeds/users/[USER_ID]/collections/[VOLUME_ID]/volumes

Where VOLUME_ID is the id of the shelf desired.

0-5 : Default Bookshelves (I had nothing in there.)

1001-onwards : User created bookshelves.