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

Scientific publications and metadata
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 
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
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
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 
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 
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 
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 

Other providers' resources (national libraries, etc.)

Other providers' resources
Platform/provider Description Access, data licence
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
Swiss Federal Archives’ AppLab 

Documentation 
  • Databases of the Federal Archives: official publications, federal law, consultations, state accounts, swiss weekly newsreel, other relevant collections 
  • Metadata (Dumps, REST API: JSON) 
  • Digitized Documents: partial full texts (XML) 
 Freely accessible 
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 
Europeana Newspaper Collection 

Documentation 

 Freely accessible, public domain, API key required for full texts
Gallica (French National Library – “Bibliothèque nationale de France” BnF) 

Documentation 

 Freely accessible, non-commercial use (licensing terms) 
Internet Archive  
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
Project Gutenberg   Freely accessible, public domain