What is an API?
API which stands for application programming interface is a communication protocol or interface which among other things allows you to quickly gain access to data.
Most APIs are RESTFUL APIs and can be fairly easily called to pull the data you need.
There are thousands of APIs out there but we will focus on the most important one relating to the area of Information Science, Scholarly communication and bibliometrics, which can be useful to librarians, researchers who are doing research or analysis in this domain.
For more APIs beyond that which refer to API Directories like Programmable Web.
Description - Main DOI registration agency for most western major journal publishers (e.g. Elsevier, Springer-Nature) who deposit information on journal articles, conference proceedings, book chapters and more that are issued dois by Crossref
Content coverage - Over 100 million dois as of Sept 2018, with compulsory and recommended fields (for journal articles) - title, ISSN,journal issue/volume, publication date, contributor info, ORCID, page number and optional fields - references, affiliation, abstracts, license information, funder, grant information, relationships between dois. In rare occasions can be used for text data mining if licenses have been signed.
How to register - No registration required
Documentation - https://www.crossref.org/services/metadata-delivery/rest-api/
Description - Another DOI registration agency like Crossref but issues DOIs for repositories including Zenodo, Figshare, Researchgate and many institutional repositories
Content coverage - Similar to Crossref, members of Datacite which include repositories deposit metadata about items that are issued dois (which tends to be preprints, datasets & software).
How to register - No registration required
Documentation - https://support.datacite.org/docs/api
Alternatives - BASE search API - BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine) is one of the biggest aggregators of repositories with over 150 million documents indexed
Description - Another DOI registration agency like Crossref but issues DOIs for repositories including Zenodo, Figshare, Researchgate and many institutional repositories
Content coverage - Similar to Crossref, members of Datacite which include repositories deposit metadata about items that are issued dois (which tends to be preprints, datasets & software).
How to register - No registration required
Documentation - https://support.datacite.org/docs/api
Description - Another DOI registration agency like Crossref but issues DOIs for repositories including Zenodo, Figshare, Researchgate and many institutional repositories
Content coverage - Similar to Crossref, members of Datacite which include repositories deposit metadata about items that are issued dois (which tends to be preprints, datasets & software).
How to register - No registration required
Documentation - https://support.datacite.org/docs/api
Description - Provides availability status (e.g. available OA or not) of doi supplied.
Content coverage - Provides information on availability of open access and for each location, the URL, type of open access (e.g. repository hosted or publisher hosted), version of open access available (e.g. Publisher version vs accepted version vs submitted version), information on whether Journal is in DOAJ.
How to register - No registration required
Documentation - https://unpaywall.org/data-format
Alternatives - Open Access button API (accepts URLs, titles not just DOIs), CORE Discovery API
Description - Another DOI registration agency like Crossref but issues DOIs for repositories including Zenodo, Figshare, Researchgate and many institutional repositories
Content coverage - Similar to Crossref, members of Datacite which include repositories deposit metadata about items that are issued dois (which tends to be preprints, datasets & software).
How to register - No registration required
Documentation - https://support.datacite.org/docs/api
Alternatives - Open Access Button API , CORE Discovery API
Description - Another DOI registration agency like Crossref but issues DOIs for repositories including Zenodo, Figshare, Researchgate and many institutional repositories
Content coverage - Similar to Crossref, members of Datacite which include repositories deposit metadata about items that are issued dois (which tends to be preprints, datasets & software).
How to register - No registration required
Documentation - https://support.datacite.org/docs/api
Description - Main DOI registration agency for most western major journal publishers (e.g. Elsevier, Springer-Nature) who deposit information on journal articles, conference proceedings, book chapters and more that are issued dois by Crossref
Content coverage - Over 100 million dois as of Sept 2018, with compulsory and recommended fields (for journal articles) - title, ISSN,journal issue/volume, publication date, contributor info, ORCID, page number and optional fields - references, affiliation, abstracts, license information, funder, grant information, relationships between dois. In rare occasions can be used for text data mining if licenses have been signed.
How to register - No registration required
Documentation - https://www.crossref.org/services/metadata-delivery/rest-api/
Description - Another DOI registration agency like Crossref but issues DOIs for repositories including Zenodo, Figshare, Researchgate and many institutional repositories
Content coverage - Similar to Crossref, members of Datacite which include repositories deposit metadata about items that are issued dois (which tends to be preprints, datasets & software).
How to register - No registration required
Documentation - https://support.datacite.org/docs/api
Description - Another DOI registration agency like Crossref but issues DOIs for repositories including Zenodo, Figshare, Researchgate and many institutional repositories
Content coverage - Similar to Crossref, members of Datacite which include repositories deposit metadata about items that are issued dois (which tends to be preprints, datasets & software).
How to register - No registration required
Documentation - https://support.datacite.org/docs/api
Description - Another DOI registration agency like Crossref but issues DOIs for repositories including Zenodo, Figshare, Researchgate and many institutional repositories
Content coverage - Similar to Crossref, members of Datacite which include repositories deposit metadata about items that are issued dois (which tends to be preprints, datasets & software).
How to register - No registration required
Documentation - https://support.datacite.org/docs/api
Description - Another DOI registration agency like Crossref but issues DOIs for repositories including Zenodo, Figshare, Researchgate and many institutional repositories
Content coverage - Similar to Crossref, members of Datacite which include repositories deposit metadata about items that are issued dois (which tends to be preprints, datasets & software).
How to register - No registration required
Documentation - https://support.datacite.org/docs/api
Description - Another DOI registration agency like Crossref but issues DOIs for repositories including Zenodo, Figshare, Researchgate and many institutional repositories
Content coverage - Similar to Crossref, members of Datacite which include repositories deposit metadata about items that are issued dois (which tends to be preprints, datasets & software).
How to register - No registration required
Documentation - https://support.datacite.org/docs/api
Description - Main DOI registration agency for most western major journal publishers (e.g. Elsevier, Springer-Nature) who deposit information on journal articles, conference proceedings, book chapters and more that are issued dois by Crossref
Content coverage - Over 100 million dois as of Sept 2018, with compulsory and recommended fields (for journal articles) - title, ISSN,journal issue/volume, publication date, contributor info, ORCID, page number and optional fields - references, affiliation, abstracts, license information, funder, grant information, relationships between dois. In rare occasions can be used for text data mining if licenses have been signed.
How to register - No registration required
Documentation - https://www.crossref.org/services/metadata-delivery/rest-api/
Description - Another DOI registration agency like Crossref but issues DOIs for repositories including Zenodo, Figshare, Researchgate and many institutional repositories
Content coverage - Similar to Crossref, members of Datacite which include repositories deposit metadata about items that are issued dois (which tends to be preprints, datasets & software).
How to register - No registration required
Documentation - https://support.datacite.org/docs/api
Description - Another DOI registration agency like Crossref but issues DOIs for repositories including Zenodo, Figshare, Researchgate and many institutional repositories
Content coverage - Similar to Crossref, members of Datacite which include repositories deposit metadata about items that are issued dois (which tends to be preprints, datasets & software).
How to register - No registration required
Documentation - https://support.datacite.org/docs/api
Description - Another DOI registration agency like Crossref but issues DOIs for repositories including Zenodo, Figshare, Researchgate and many institutional repositories
Content coverage - Similar to Crossref, members of Datacite which include repositories deposit metadata about items that are issued dois (which tends to be preprints, datasets & software).
How to register - No registration required
Documentation - https://support.datacite.org/docs/api
Description - Another DOI registration agency like Crossref but issues DOIs for repositories including Zenodo, Figshare, Researchgate and many institutional repositories
Content coverage - Similar to Crossref, members of Datacite which include repositories deposit metadata about items that are issued dois (which tends to be preprints, datasets & software).
How to register - No registration required
Documentation - https://support.datacite.org/docs/api
Description - Another DOI registration agency like Crossref but issues DOIs for repositories including Zenodo, Figshare, Researchgate and many institutional repositories
Content coverage - Similar to Crossref, members of Datacite which include repositories deposit metadata about items that are issued dois (which tends to be preprints, datasets & software).
How to register - No registration required
Documentation - https://support.datacite.org/docs/api
