Creating a Scholarly API Cookbook: Supporting Library Users with Programmatic Access to Information

Scholarly web-based application programming interfaces (APIs) allow users to interact with information and data programmatically. Interacting with information programmatically allows users to create advanced information query workflows and quickly access machine-readable data for downstream computat...

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Published in:Issues in science and technology librarianship no. 104
Main Authors: Scalfani, Vincent F., Walker, Kevin W., Simpson, Lance, Fernandez, Avery M., Patel, Vishank D., Ramig, Anastasia, Gomes, Cyrus, Moen, Michael T., Nguyen, Adam M.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: University of Alberta Library 05.10.2023
Subjects:
Application Programming Interface (API)
Jupyter
Machine-readable
Programmatic access
Tutorial
Z39.50
ISSN:1092-1206, 1092-1206
Online Access:Get full text
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Abstract Scholarly web-based application programming interfaces (APIs) allow users to interact with information and data programmatically. Interacting with information programmatically allows users to create advanced information query workflows and quickly access machine-readable data for downstream computations. With the growing availability of scholarly APIs from open and commercial library databases, supporting access to information via an API has become a key support area for research data services in libraries. This article describes our efforts with supporting API access through the development of an online Scholarly API Cookbook. The Cookbook contains code recipes (i.e., tutorials) for getting started with 10 different scholarly APIs, including for example, Scopus, World Bank, and PubMed. API tutorials are available in Python, Bash, Matlab, and Mathematica. A tutorial for interacting with library catalog data programmatically via Z39.50 is also included, as traditional library catalog metadata is rarely available via an API. In addition to describing the Scholarly API Cookbook content, we discuss our experiences building a student research data services programming team, challenges we encountered, and ideas to improve the Cookbook. The University of Alabama Libraries Scholarly API Cookbook is freely available and hosted on GitHub. All code within the API Cookbook is licensed with the permissive MIT license, and as a result, users are free to reuse and adapt the code in their teaching and research.
AbstractList Scholarly web-based application programming interfaces (APIs) allow users to interact with information and data programmatically. Interacting with information programmatically allows users to create advanced information query workflows and quickly access machine-readable data for downstream computations. With the growing availability of scholarly APIs from open and commercial library databases, supporting access to information via an API has become a key support area for research data services in libraries. This article describes our efforts with supporting API access through the development of an online Scholarly API Cookbook. The Cookbook contains code recipes (i.e., tutorials) for getting started with 10 different scholarly APIs, including for example, Scopus, World Bank, and PubMed. API tutorials are available in Python, Bash, Matlab, and Mathematica. A tutorial for interacting with library catalog data programmatically via Z39.50 is also included, as traditional library catalog metadata is rarely available via an API. In addition to describing the Scholarly API Cookbook content, we discuss our experiences building a student research data services programming team, challenges we encountered, and ideas to improve the Cookbook. The University of Alabama Libraries Scholarly API Cookbook is freely available and hosted on GitHub. All code within the API Cookbook is licensed with the permissive MIT license, and as a result, users are free to reuse and adapt the code in their teaching and research.
Author Scalfani, Vincent F.
Simpson, Lance
Gomes, Cyrus
Ramig, Anastasia
Fernandez, Avery M.
Moen, Michael T.
Walker, Kevin W.
Patel, Vishank D.
Nguyen, Adam M.
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Cites_doi 10.5860/crl.83.6.887
10.1108/LHT-12-2018-0209
10.1108/07378830310467382
10.1136/jamia.1996.96342647
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10.1021/acs.jchemed.1c00904
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10.52041/serj.v21i2.49
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10.1109/TE.2008.930509
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10.1002/pra2.2016.14505301129
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Machine-readable
Programmatic access
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Title Creating a Scholarly API Cookbook: Supporting Library Users with Programmatic Access to Information
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