Can I get book descriptions and bibliographic data electronically from a variety of publishers, for free?
I’m not sure exactly what you want. Most publishers will have their ad copy or catalog copy in their online catalogs or rights guides. There were a few services in the late 90s that tried to gather all of this information into some kind of browsing site, but Amazon worked better and sold books to boot. There’s one company I know of that is attempting to gather all of this info from publisher to store electronically for the NYT book review, Barnes and Noble, Google and more. Their called Dial-A-Book, but you’ll have to research what they have available. Most publishers use Amazon and Books In Print for this kind of info, but Books in Print is costly and Amazon doesn’t seem to be what you’re looking for. Most publishers I know still rely on the old printed catalog to sell from. The only other thing I can think of is to search for subsidiary rights guides on the publishers’ sites. These would have some of the info you need and are generally easier to obtain electronically.
