Find a work by its title
search_worksSearch the Bibliothèque nationale de France catalogue by title words to find works and retrieve their identifiers and edition lists.
Instructions
Find a work in the Bibliothèque nationale de France catalogue by words in its title, and get the identifier get_work and list_editions take. A row matches when its title carries every word given. The index returns no measure of how well a row matches, so the rows are ordered by the address of the record and the work a person would call the obvious answer can sit anywhere in the list or on a later page. A study of a book carries the book's title, so a search for a famous title returns the criticism alongside the work. Read 'creators' to tell them apart. This reads titles and nothing else. Searching a person's name returns the works written about them, whose creators are their critics; list_works is what walks from a person to the works the catalogue names them the creator of. 'status' says whether the BnF has established the work as a record of its own or holds it provisionally under a title it has catalogued. One search reads a fixed window of the index, and that window is read before the works are told apart from everything else the index holds, so even a short list can rest on a full one. 'index_window_full' says which: when it is true, titles sit past what was read, 'has_more' being false says where the reading stopped, and another reading of the same search can bring back other rows. Add a word to the title to reach further.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| page | No | ||
| limit | No | ||
| title | Yes | Words from the title, such as 'saison enfer'. Every word given has to appear. |
Output Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| page | Yes | ||
| notes | Yes | ||
| title | Yes | The words asked for. | |
| works | Yes | ||
| has_more | Yes | Whether the endpoint held at least one further row beyond this page, within the window the search read off the index. Read it alongside 'index_window_full': false on a full window says where the reading stopped rather than that the catalogue holds nothing else. | |
| retrieved_at | Yes | When these metadata were read from data.bnf.fr, as an ISO 8601 instant. The BnF licence asks for this date to be stated wherever the metadata are shown, so repeat it alongside the source. | |
| words_searched | Yes | The terms the index required, each of which has to appear in the title. A word is cut at an apostrophe and at a hyphen before the index sees it, so a word given as one can appear here as two, and a record carrying the pieces apart is a match. | |
| index_window_full | Yes | Whether the fixed window this search reads off the index came back full. The window is read before the works are separated from the rest of the index, so a short list can rest on a full window. True means titles carrying these words sit past what was read, and another reading can bring back other rows. False means the window held everything that matched. Null when the endpoint stated no occupancy. |