Jim,
If I understand it correctly, you will be using the list of paragraph and character styles to define the first level of a conversion table. Unless your books contain very large numbers of chapters, there is no need to write a script for this. You simply call the StructureTools > Generate Conversion Table command on the first chapter in the book. Save the generated conversion table. Then for each of the remaining chapters in the book, open that chapter and call the Generate Conversion Table command again, choosing the option to add the formats to the existing conversion table document. What remains is a full conversion table that contains all your paragraph, chapter and cross-reference formats, plus markers and table elements.
Good luck. If you get stuck or need someone to build your conversion tables, let me know. I won't do it for free, as I do need to make a living out of this, but I have done the work before and that might help.
Jang