Hello and thanks in advance for any guidance on my dilemma below.
Background
My children are currently in elementary school. They have AR (Accelerated Reading) books they are required to read outside the class and then test on them when they are finished. Each semester they have to accumulate points (set anywhere from 15 to 24). They are given a reading level range (for example 3.5 to 5.2) for which they can pick and choose books from. Our struggle is to find the books in the library and make sure they never repeat the same book. My wife up to this point uses paper lists and memory.
What I am hoping can be accomplished (somehow...open to any suggestions).
This is the URL to the schools to choose from that gets updated periodically.
http://www.readthebooks.com/rtb/files2/rtb_rowan/aliens/schools/XSchools.mvWe go to Woodleaf so we picked that school. So depending on the school, we would need to be able to select the school 1st and then complete the steps below.
This is the URL to all the books at Woodleaf schools. Not sorted and displaying apprximately 20 only.
http://www.classreading.com/rtb/RL_Books.mvc?Zfile=rtb_rowan&Zschool=RS_RL_18&schoolname=Woodleaf%20Elementary%20School&var2=OFF&YEAP=A0019So, with the URL above I would want to keep parsing through all the pages and gathering the first 4 columns of data.
Then for each, I want to press the "Search Catalog" button (here is sample URL where it passes the title and author last name....
http://catalog.rowanpubliclibrary.org/TLCScripts/interpac.dll?Search&FormID=0&Config=pac&LimitsID=0&StartIndex=0&SearchField=16777216&SearchType=1&SearchData=the%2013th%20floor%20%20a%20ghost%20story%20and%20Fleischman)
With the catalog page displayed we are looking at the Location field (Headquarters only) and whether it is available or not.
Then, if it is available, we want to status the book as one we have read so in future lookups we don't checkout the same book. This would be good if we could status by name also. That way my son and daughter don't overlap with each other.
There doesn't seem to be an exposed web servicce we can use so I was thinking something simple like MS Access for the DB. The issue is how do I parse the data from the web? Is there a routine or spider or something I can use to extract the data?
Also, this doesn't necessarily have to be a MS Access DB application if someone has a better idea. I have capabilities to host a web application if that is a better idea.
Note: I am going to gladly share this with the other parents in the school system. Any help would be appreciated and I will give you big credits on the Splash into the application.
