Hi Kathy,
Sorry for the delay in following up on this; Steven Chans analysis of
the Overdrive API that he provided for Sitka Support is outlined
below. Please let me know if you have any questions.
For context, Sitka already imports MARC records from Overdrive into
our public catalogue, scoping on the 856$9 for location. The patron
can click the associated 856 url, which takes them to the Overdrive
website, where they need to re-authenticate against Overdrive. What we
are hoping to achieve for our patrons is a more seamless experience
for the patron, i.e. they initially log in to My Account in Sitka pac,
then when click on the link for the pac for an Overdrive resource,
they are immediately authenticated. Wed also like them to see
real-time availability within the Sitka pac.
==Steven Chans analysis of the Overdrive API follows==
The intent of the API is to allow developers to recreate an Overdrive
website to perform searches, get a list of results, see the details
of a selected title, and see its availability. The search is over the
Overdrive catalogue; consequently, you can integrate other services
with the recreated Overdrive website, or embed it into another
website, but you cannot integrate the search with another catalogue.
You could try to issue a parallel search over the Overdrive catalogue
and over the library catalogue, but you will have the difficulty of
integrating the two sets of search results. Since the two sets will
almost always be paged, integrating them can't really be done.
The best that can be done I think, even when the remaining APIthe
so-called Content API--is released, is to continue to import MARC
records into the library catalogue. Then we would use the Metadata API
to show title details, the Availability API to show real-time status,
and the Content API to place holds and checkouts.
The login procedure (1) for Overdrive I haven't studied yet, but I'm
guessing this can be done with extra programming of the current OPAC;
it wouldn't need a new API.
There is also the issue of getting an authorization token in order to
be able to access the APIs; every call to an API will need to include
the token otherwise access is refused. A token needs to be gotten for
each user session. The token will eventually expire, eg, the demo
shows the token lasting an hour; therefore, the token will need to be
refreshed if the session persists.
Real-time availability (2) can be done by using the Metadata API and
the Availability API in the existing OPAC. If a user clicks a title on
the search result list, we would check if the title is an Overdrive,
and if so, we would show title details via the Metadata API and
real-time status via the Availability API; otherwise, we would show
details and statuses in the 'normal' way.
The Overdrive APIs do not seem to allow for improving MARC record
import. What is needed is a 'synchronizing' API, whereby a library
gets notified of newly available records and can pull them into the
catalogue.
Re: the pending content api from Overdrive that is being developed
for Innovative and referenced in this article:
http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2013/04/ebooks/overdrives-upcoming-apis-to-allow-ebook-checkouts-from-opac/
We can improve seamlessness right away by doing (1) and (2) above; we
needn't wait for the Content API.
It will be interesting to see what Innovative will show: will they
show a separate interface for searching Overdrive resources? Or will
they show an integrated search? If the latter, then the natural
question to ask is how they do it, ie, is there a hidden API that
Innovative and Overdrive is not showing us?
===End===
Sharon Herbert
Sitka Manager
BC Libraries Cooperative
Tel: 1-855-383-5761 x1013
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://bc.libraries.coop
Quoting "Sharon Herbert (Project Sitka)" <[email protected]>:
Hi Kathy,
Sitka is very interested in Overdrive integration as well. We've also
included MARC records from Overdrive, but would like to display title
availability and have seamless checkout from within the Evergreen pac.
When we last reviewed the API on the Overdrive developers' site about a
month ago, it didn't appear that any of the existing API would allow
either of those functions. The existing API seemed more geared to
making Overdrive content available on library websites.
This article alludes to a content.api that is still pending from
Overdrive, which would seem to get us closer to what we want:
http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2013/04/ebooks/overdrives-upcoming-apis-to-allow-ebook-checkouts-from-opac/
Steven Chan did some detailed analysis on the Overdrive API (we got
sidetracked by the 2.4 upgrade, so haven't revisited Overdrive yet), so
I will look that up and aim to share it out with everyone.
Thanks,
Sharon
Quoting [email protected]:
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 16:14:32 -0400
From: Kathy Lussier <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Overdrive API
To: [email protected]
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed"
Thanks Ruth!
To be clear, we've already included MARC records from Overdrive into our
catalogs. What we're looking for is development to use the Overdrive API
to display title availability information directly in the catalog and to
allow patrons to check out Overdrive titles without leaving the catalog.
Thanks!
Kathy
Kathy Lussier
Project Coordinator
Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
(508) 343-0128
[email protected]
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier
--
Sharon Herbert
Sitka Manager
BC Libraries Cooperative
Tel: 1-855-383-5761 x1013
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://bc.libraries.coop
