It isn't unfortunate, it was deliberate. I have a key for the basic api,
but I was being advised that I had overlooked the obvious answer of the
worldcat search API. I have no confusion between the two, except for the
confusion that seems to be promulgated by OCLC itself.
kc
On 7/12/12 9:46 AM, Karen Coombs wrote:
Karen,
Unfortunately it looks like you requested a key for the WorldCat
Search API which does have specific eligibility criteria. The WorldCat
Basic API which Ross mentions is available to anyone -
http://www.oclc.org/developer/services/worldcat-basic-api
It allows you to do an OpenSearch keyword query of WorldCat and get
back basic metadata including the link to the worldcat.org page for
each record returned.
The easiest way to get a key is to go to http://worldcat.org/config/
and login with a WorldCat username/password. You should see a link
that says WorldCat Basic API Key which you can use to get a key.
I apologize for the confusion between the two APIs (WorldCat Search
and WorldCat Basic). The difference is something we've tried to make
clearer in our documentation but unfortunately given your experience
it is still an issue.
Karen
On Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 11:33 AM, Karen Coyle <[email protected]> wrote:
On 7/10/12 5:07 PM, Karen Coyle wrote:
On 7/10/12 4:02 PM, Richard Wallis wrote:
But is it available to everyone, and is the data retrieved also usable as
ODC-BY by any member of the Web public?
Yes it is, and at this stage it is only available from within a html
page.
The "it" I was referring to was the API. Roy is telling me that people
should use the API, as if that is an obvious option that I am overlooking. I
am asking if the general web public can use the API to get this data. I
believe that should be a yes/no question/answer.
Since no one here from OCLC had the integrity to answer this question, I
went ahead and applied for a Worldcat API key, and here is the reply:
*****
Hello,
Thank you for your interest in the WorldCat Search API, however at this time
the web service is only available to institutions, primarily libraries, that
have a specific relationship with OCLC and then only for work related to
that library's services. The specific relationship is explained further
here,
http://oclc.org/developer/documentation/worldcat-search-api/who-can-use.
However, there are other OCLC services that are available to individual's
non-commercial use. Looking at the list of services available on
http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/content/affiliate/ you'll see that the WorldCat
search box and WorldCat links with embedded searches are available to
anyone. You may also be interested in checking out the WorldCat Registry,
or low-volume use of the xISBN and xISSN services.
If you have questions about the service, please contact the product manager,
Dawn Hendricks at [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>.
*****
There is nothing wrong with having a proprietary API; but pretending that it
isn't (either directly or through omission), or being afraid to say it, is
the kind of thing that has caused me to lose respect for OCLC. Nothing
should be declared "open" that isn't available to all, not just members. And
advertisements for WC API classes should state "members only." That would be
honest. And telling folks on a wide-open list that they should use the
Worldcat API (without mentioning "if you are in a member institution and
using this for library services) is at best deceiving, at worst dishonest.
I, for one, am tired of OCLC's lies, and I'm not afraid to say it.
Fortunately for me, retirement is looming and I don't need to care who likes
what I say. This is a relief, to say the least.
kc
kc
This experiment is the first step in a process to make linked data about
WorldCat resources available. As it will evolve over time other areas
such
as API access, content-negotiation, search & other query methods,
additional RDF data vocabularies, etc., etc., will be considered in
concert
with community feedback (such as this thread) as to the way forward.
Karen I know you are eager to work with and demonstrate the benefits of
this way of publishing data. But these things take time and effort, so
please be a little patient, and keep firing off these use cases and
issues
they are all valuable input.
~Richard.
kc
Roy
On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 2:08 PM, Kevin Ford <[email protected]>
wrote:
The use case clarifies perfectly.
Totally feasible. Well, I should say "totally feasible" with the
caveat
that I've never used the Worldcat Search API. Not letting that stop
me,
so
long as it is what I imagine it is, then a developer should be able to
perform a search, retrieve the response, and, by integrating one of
the
tools advertised on the schema.org website into his/her code, then
retrieve
the microdata for each resource returned from the search (and save it
as
RDF
or whatever).
If someone has created something like this, do speak up.
Yours,
Kevin
On 07/10/2012 04:48 PM, Karen Coyle wrote:
Kevin, if you misunderstand then I undoubtedly haven't been clear
(let's
at least share the confusion :-)). Here's the use case:
PersonA wants to create a comprehensive bibliography of works by
AuthorB. The goal is to do a search on AuthorB in WorldCat and
extract
the RDFa data from those pages in order to populate the bibliography.
Apart from all of the issues of getting a perfect match on authors
and
of manifestation duplicates (there would need to be editing of the
results after retrieval at the user's end), how feasible is this?
Assume
that the author is prolific enough that one wouldn't want to look up
all
of the records by hand.
kc
On 7/10/12 1:43 PM, Kevin Ford wrote:
As for someone who might want to do this programmatically, he/she
should take a look at the "Programming languages" section of the
second link I sent along:
http://schema.rdfs.org/tools.**html<http://schema.rdfs.org/tools.html>
There one can find Ruby, Python, and Java extractors and parsers
capable of outputting RDF. A developer can take one of these and
programmatically get at the data.
Apologies if I am misunderstanding your intent.
Yours,
Kevin
On 07/10/2012 04:34 PM, Karen Coyle wrote:
Thanks, Kevin! And Richard!
I'm thinking we need a good web site with links to tools. I had
already
been introduced to
http://www.w3.org/2012/pyRdfa/
where you can past a URI and get ttl or rdf/xml. These are all good
resources. But what about someone who wants to do this
programmatically,
not through a web site? Richard's message indicates that this isn't
yet
available, so perhaps we should be gathering use cases to support
the
need? And have a place to post various solutions, even ones that
are
not
OCLC-specific? (Because I am hoping that the use of microformats
will
increase in general.)
kc
On 7/10/12 12:12 PM, Kevin Ford wrote:
is there an open search to get one to the desired records in the
first
place?
-- I'm not certain this will fully address your question, but try
these two sites:
Website:
http://www.google.com/**webmasters/tools/richsnippets<http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets>
Example: http://tinyurl.com/dx3h5bg
Website:
http://linter.structured-data.**org/<http://linter.structured-data.org/>
Example: http://tinyurl.com/bmm8bbc
These sites will extract the data, but I don't think you get your
choice of serialization. The data are extracted and displayed on
the
resulting page in the HTML, but at least you can *see* the data.
Additionally, there are a number of "tools" to help with microdata
extraction here:
http://schema.rdfs.org/tools.**html<http://schema.rdfs.org/tools.html>
Some of these will allow you to output specific (RDF)
serializations.
HTH,
Kevin
On 07/10/2012 02:42 PM, Karen Coyle wrote:
I have demonstrated the schema.org/RDFa microdata in the WC
database to
various folks and the question always is: how do I get access to
this?
(The only source I have is the Facebook API, me being a "user"
rather
than a "maker".) The microdata is CC-BY once you get a Worldcat
URI, but
is there an open search to get one to the desired records in the
first
place? I'm poorly-versed in WC APIs so I'm hoping others have a
better
grasp.
@rjw: the OCLC website does a thorough job of hiding email
addresses or
I would have asked this directly. Then again, a discussion here
could
have added value.
Thanks,
kc
--
Karen Coyle
[email protected] http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet
--
Karen Coyle
[email protected] http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet
--
Karen Coyle
[email protected] http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet
