Data Delivery Options
content@ingram is available in two delivery formats. We suggest consulting with your programmer to help you decide which option would better fit your needs.
1) Bulk Download
All of the content@ingram data elements are licensed in a series of relational tables – mostly in fixed-width text format. The files are updated weekly and available for download from our FTP site. You download the files and build the database on your own server. You will need to develop an interface from the database to your search engine, shopping cart, etc. Most subscribers combine content@ingram data with proprietary data and their own software.
The data is licensed in blocks of 100,000 titles and priced accordingly. If only a few hundred titles are desired, a “per title” option is available for certain data elements.
2) Web Service
The content@ingram Web Service (CWS) is another way you can access Ingram Book Company’s rich content without having to download large files. A search engine and database containing all of the content@ingram data elements, including extended titles, is already built by Ingram and resides on our server. You develop your own site with shopping cart, etc. Your application posts a query request using Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) to our web service over the Internet. The web service serves up search results via XML. You format and display those results to your specifications. You can even sort the results by almost any data element, including the popularity of the title.
Pricing for this option is based on the volume of queries to our database per month.
NOTE: The web service is not designed for large lists of data to be downloaded and stored on your server. We recommend the bulk download option if that is needed.
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