Hello !
Would it be possible to add a "Search for metadata" button below the ISBN field for new books?
This button would trigger a call to the Google Books API using the ISBN as the key. In the plugin settings, we could optionally add the ability to enter a Google key (not required for a small number of requests).
The Google API returns a rich JSON feed (example: https://www.googleapis.com/books/v1/volumes?q=isbn:9781784059507) which could populate a large number of fields, including a cover image when available. It would also be helpful if the author and publisher information were automatically added to the database if they don't already exist and pre-populated as entered data in the corresponding fields.
Please feel free to discuss this further if you find this request relevant.
Sincerely,
To demonstrate what would be expected, I created a plugin that adds an ISBN search button below the ISBN field when creating a book. This plugin is currently just a demo, but it works correctly on our site.
For your information, it's available at:
https://github.com/FERRATON/abookisbn
I think this would be a nice feature to integrate into a future version of Alexandria Book Library.