this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2026
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I wonder if there's anything positive to be said about ISBNDB. On one hand, they're supplying AI companies, yes, on the other hand, they seem to be digitalizing previously unavailable paper books, which is kinda useful for preservation? Except, I'm not entirely sure it's possible to properly get this data out of them on consumer scale: they seem to sell API access, but it's a big question of how usable and affordable it would be to retrieve a digital version of some rare ancient book that could just disappear into oblivion otherwise. Their cheapest subscription is 15$/month, but I have little idea of how what's listed there translates into volumes of books you can retrieve during this month.
Also what if the beancounters decided keeping this digital library is costing us too much so it's going bye bye.