University Library of Bern UB

Digital Scholarship

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)

Many platforms make their data available for download through an interface (Application Programming Interfaces, APIs). In addition to the freely accessible data services, university members can also use the APIs of licensed data sources. Sometimes an individual API key needs to be registered for this.

Would you like some assistance with the use of APIs or are you not finding what you want in the overview? You are very welcome to contact us.

Scientific publications and metadata

Wissenschaftliche Publikationen und Metadaten
Platform/provider Description Access, data licence
OpenAlex

Documentation
  • REST API with endpoints for five types of entities: works, authors, venues (journals, repositories), institutions, concepts
  • Metadata including citation data and full text links
  • People data
  • Data sources and data dumps
  • R Wrapper
  • Jupyter Notebook in the DS Toolbox

Freely accessible, CC0

 
CrossRef

Documentation:

Metadata, event data

 
  • Metadata, some with full text links: various APIs, e.g. REST API and dumps
  • Event data and funder data
  • Data sources: publishers
  • Wrappers for various languages
  • API request for all publications available for TDM (approx. 142,000)
  • Jupyter Notebook in the DS Toolbox
 Freely accessible (etiquette); metadata: "free to use", funder data: CC0
Elsevier

Documentation: Start, APIs

 
  • Full texts of Elsevier publications: Article (Full Text) Retrieval API (max. 6,000 records, various formats)
  • Metadata (incl. abstracts, Elsevier publications or Scopus)
 Entire content licensed for TDM (non-commercial use);

API key required
Springer Nature

Documentation: Start, APIs
  • Full texts (Springer, Nature, Imprints): via article webpages (1 request/sec, XML)
  • Metadata (incl. abstracts): APIs
 Entire content licensed for TDM (non-commercial use);

User key required for APIs
Wiley

Documentation
  • Full texts and metadata (PDF, XML) via article webpages
 Entire content licensed for TDM (non-commercial use);

TDM token required
PubMed Central

Documentation
  • Open access to full texts (XML, TXT, PDF): API, FTP
  • Full texts of accepted author manuscripts (XML, TXT): FTP
 Min. TDM licence, CC licenses, some include commercial use
Public Library of Science (PLoS)

Documentation
  • Metadata: API
  • Full texts: data dump recommended, some are also available via webpage (XML, PDF)
  • Article level metrics API
 Freely accessible; CC BY
IEEE Xplore

Documentation
  • Metadata including abstracts (XML, JSON, max. 10 requests/sec, 200 requests/day)
  • Java, PHP, Python (2.7) SDKs
  • Dynamic Query Tool
 Entire content licensed for TDM (non-commercial use);

Registration required for APIs
Frontiers

Documentation
  • Full texts and metadata (XML, PDF, EPUB) via article webpages
 Freely accessible; CC BY
MDPI

Documentation
  • Metadata: OAI-PMH API
  • Full texts: bulk download with sFTP (journal batches: XML, PDF)
  • Full texts and metadata (XML, PDF) via article webpages (70 requests/20 min.)
 Freely accessible; CC BY

Other providers’ resources (national libraries, etc.)

Ressourcen anderer Anbieter
Platform/provider Description Access, data licence
Europeana Newspaper Collection

Documentation

 Freely accessible, public domain, API key required for full texts
German Digital Library

Documentation

 
  • 40 million objects/documents relating to culture and science
  • Metadata (CC0)
  • Digital reproductions, images, audio files, videos
  • People data
 Freely accessible, various licenses, API key required
German National Library

Metadata services

DNBLab
  • National bibliographic title data and selected collections
  • Authority data (Integrated Authority File, "Gemeinsame Normdatei" GND), digitalized tables of contents
  • Dumps (including sFTP), various APIs and formats (SRU, OAI, linked data)
  • Jupyter Notebook tutorials for querying and using data
 Freely accessible, public domain
Gallica (French National Library – “Bibliothèque nationale de France” BnF)

Documentation

 Freely accessible, non-commercial use (licensing terms)
KB National Library of the Netherlands

Data services
  • Data services & APIs
  • Delpher Open Newspaper Archive: Dutch newspapers 1618-1876: Bulk download of full texts (OCR, ALTO, XML) and scans (JP2/JPEG, PDF) via APIs
 Freely accessible, various licenses
Memobase

Documentation
  •  Platform for the audiovisual cultural heritage of Switzerland by memoriav.ch
  • Image files (IIIF)
  • Metadata (REST: JSON-LD, OAI-PMH: XML/EDM, IIIF: JSON/RiC)
 Freely accessible, various licenses
Internet Archive 
Project Gutenberg  Freely accessible, public domain