Where to find TOC of books in copyable text forms?

I would like to know how to find the table of content of a book

1. in a text-copyable format, because I may want to copy out the text of the toc (my order of preference: html or ASCII text format, non-scanned text-copyable pdf, scanned and OCRed pdf because OCR may not give well-aligned lines when copying out the text)
2. preferably in complete form, i.e. down to the lowest level and containing page numbers, just as what we can see in the TOC part of a print book.

Are there some websites of libraries, organizations or databases providing such TOC information?

Alternatively, are there some indirect way to get around if there is no such information available for a specific book?

For example, I am looking for the table of content of "Foundations of financial markets and institutions" Fourth Edition by Fabozzi.

1. By searching the book in Google, it gives a link to a scanned and OCRed pdf file for its content at http://swbplus.bsz-bw.de/bsz304528544inh.pdf. But I hope to know how to find the pdf file for the book's TOC on the main site http://www.bsz-bw.de/index.html, so I searched the book title there and reached http://swb2.bsz-bw.de/DB=2.1/SET=1/TTL=1/SHW?FRST=2&ADI_LND=, but now I wonder where the pdf for its TOC is?
2. Since the format in 1 is scanned and OCRed pdf, I also hope to know if there are other sites providing better text for TOC?

Note that I am not just looking for table of content of this book, but also for a book in general case.

Thanks and regards,

Tim

• search

Comments

• Jakob: The swb2... URL is not stable, you can link to this book with http://swb2.bsz-bw.de/DB=2.1/PPNSET?PPN=320963403&INDEXSET=1
• Tim: (1) About the tags, why does TOC have to do with cataloging? (2) @Jakob: What does "URL is not stable" mean technically?
• Jakob: (2) I mean, it is no permanent URL but only valid within a session with browser cookie. This is just one example of why old library OPACs suck. (1) the better tag is catalog-enrichment because ToC are usually used for this purpose in libraries.

Answer by dsalo

WorldCat often includes tables of contents; on an individual book's page scroll all the way down past the libraries that hold the book to find the "details" section. Here's an example of a book with a ToC.

Because of the vagaries of cataloging, you'll notice that the punctuation is a bit odd. It should be consistently odd, so if you need to strip it for some reason, you should find it doable.

Comments

• Tim: Thanks! In your example, the toc is not as detailed as the toc of the printed book: not down to the lowest level of sections, and no page numbers.

Answer by Jakob

There is not one single source of ToCs. In addition to WorldCat and SWB I recommend:

• Google Books
• Amazon (some Books have preview)
• GBV union catalog (see for instance http://www.gbv.de/dms/zbw/58763202X.pdf, linked at http://gso.gbv.de/DB=2.1/PPNSET?PPN=58763202X which by the way is equal to the PDF from SWB)
• The publisher's homepage (last hope)

The ToCs available at GBV and SWB are created by http://www.agi-imc.de (as specified in the PDF metadata). The company scans 1,3 million ToCs a year for German library networks.

Comments

• Tim: Thanks! (1) Google Books and Amazon's book preview don't allow to copy the text out. (2) Scanned and OCRed pdf by GBV often doesn't have lines well aligned when copied out. Nonetheless, both are better than none. To give the due credits, the project in Germany is very great.