On 20/02/2014 09:36, Dicken, Jude wrote:
> API - Essential (Desirable) Checklist for sharing collections content
>
> In a short time I've learnt a lot about API - thanks again to everyone who shared info.
> Maybe an unanswerable question, but if you were to write a checklist for what is essential (and desirable) in an API for sharing collections content, what would it contain?
OK, I'll have a go:
* delivers information in one or more widely-used machine-processible
formats (e.g. XML, JSON, RDF[1])
* uses sector standards where possible (e.g. SPECTRUM-XML, CIDOC-CRM,
LIDO)
* prevents the release of sensitive and confidential information via
filters and/or access controls
* provides a flexible query mechanism, whose syntax is ideally based
on a standard (e.g. OpenSearch, SPARQL)
* if it supports updating, has suitable access controls to prevent
unauthorised updates
* serves to "publish" each collections item with its own unique,
persistent identifier (ideally a dereferenceable URL)
* is dynamically linked to live collections data, so it always
delivers live information without the need for manual intervention
> I'm hoping there are other API-newbies out there (without in-house IT specialists) who'd find this kind of checklist useful when considering writing a brief or scoring matrix for building an API.
My advice to such people would be - DON'T!! Developing a custom API,
especially for a small institution, is creating exactly the same sort of
hostage to fortune as an in-house cataloguing system "written" in
FileMaker Pro or Access. And we /all/ know better than to do that, now,
don't we? :-)
Putting to one side the horrendous self-imposed long-term problem of
maintaining your new API, think of it from the data consumer's point of
view. They want to gather information from a number of data sources,
including yours. Now they have a new interface to manage and write code
for. They won't thank you. Far better to adopt the API/Linked Data
interface offered by your friendly SPECTRUM-compliant systems supplier,
and give them a target which they have already programmed for. That
way, it is more likely that your data will actually be used, and merged
with data from other institutions in newly-developed web offerings.
Richard
[1] RDF isn't quite the same sort of beast as the other two, as it has a
variety of serializations. Worth bearing in mind, though
>
> Thanks as always,
>
> Jude.
>
> Jude Dicken (Miss)
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