Written by Dicte Madsen
If your research project involves large publication data sets, you will probably need an API to retrieve information from major publishers or bibliographic databases.
What is an API?
An API - Application Programming Interface - is a tool used to share data between applications. APIs can be used for extracting data from a database; they are often used to embed content from one application in another or to dynamically post content from one system to another.
Where do I find APIs?
Many scholarly publishers and database vendors provide APIs for the extraction of data for research purposes. Whereas the choices of API are plentiful, this article will zoom in on the ones that relate to scholarly research specifically. Check out the list of APIs for Scholarly Resources compiled by MIT Libraries.
How much data can I access?
Although APIs are often freely available, it does not necessarily follow that you have unlimited access to all the data contained in the databases.
You can divide the Scholarly APIs into three categories:
- APIs that give access to scholarly metadata, e.g. Crossref, Datacite, ORCID, and Unpaywall.
- APIs with metadata and full text for text mining, e.g. Arxiv API, and JSTOR.
- Subscription-based APIs, e.g. Elsevier products (including Scopus, ScienceDirect, and SciVal), and Web of Science.
For more examples, check out the SMU Libraries guide.
In many cases, researchers are interested in getting access to full data sets. Some of the companies behind the subscription-based APIs are happy to share data with non-commercial research projects. However, nothing usually comes for free so please make sure to read the fine print before applying for access, as they may require that you share with them all research outputs resulting from
the use of their data and tools as soon as possible after dissemination. Companies that provide full data sets are:
- Dimensions: “Free data access for scientometric research projects”
- Elsevier: ICSR Lab: “Access rich datasets on a powerful computational platform, free for research use”
- Microsoft Academic: “Research more, search less”
- Web of Science: “Our APIs are better because our data is better”
If you have any questions, please reach out to the library bibliometrics team at metrics.lib@cbs.dk