...
-- When submitting XML, headers are standard. Examples of valid XML useful. http://isni.oclc.org:8080/isni/atompub/
Meeting notes 3/23/18
Progress reports:
-- Vitus: tested individual records via API; testing who can write a batch of submissions
-- Lucas:want to create a script to convert MARCXML (MARC bibliographic) into submission format for batch submission
-- Christine: haven't done much testing; sent email to OCLC to deal with this issue. voliunteering to relay problems, be point of contact. working on python scripting xform into batch submit, from spreadsheet
-- Brian: good handle on name creation, want to streamline workflow on related identifiers, interested in scripts from spreadsheet
-- Batch submissions : does ISNI have preferred methods for batch submission; what is relationship of mapping group to our group?; scripts, tools, etc. for batch submission. possibility of meeting with our group?
-- Email 1-2 page summary of testing and results, questions, best pracitces, etc. to: babraham@mit.edu
Testing notes from VT Stanford
I have tested the ISNI SRU Search API and have these observtions:
- The documentation is in a Word document, titled “ISNI SRU Search API: Guidelines and Examples”. It has rather limited information.
- The first example (search by name keyword) doesn’t work:
Zero record is retrieved. It would work if “%2B” is replaced with either “%20” or “+”.
- There is no information about how to specify a sort order for the returned records. Other members of the API group have noted that the order of the returned records from the API is different from the order of the records one gets when using the web interface. The documentation should include this type of information.
I have also tested the ISNI AtomPub API, which is used to submit a request for ISNI assignment. My test cases were:
- Add profile link and institution affiliation info for Stanford faculty
- Request ISNI for video game designers
The documentation (Word file with title “ISNI Atom Pub API : Guidelines, Examples and Assignment Rules”) is much more extensive (75 pages) compared to the Search API documentation. However, acquiring an understanding of how this API works, based on this documentation, is not an easy task. Several readings are required, supplemented by hands-on testings. I, and other API subgroup members, had encountered these stumbling blocks:
- Access to the API is through whitelisting of IP addresses, which is rather awkward as people often use laptops that don’t have a constant IP address. An API key would be more convenient, and would probably require less time to set up.
- The presumably simple task of finding the URL of the Request schema so that it can be plugged in to your XML editor to create request documents that meet the API’s requirement had turned out to be not so simple. It took quite a bit of digging in ISNI’s documentation area in order to find that.
- Cryptic messages in the API’s response. For example, a message like this:
<responseRecord>
<noISNI>
<reason>no match initial database</reason>
</noISNI>
<information>
data not accepted
</information>
leaves one wondering what happened and what one has to do in order to have a successful request. Result, a lot of digging in documentation and head scratching.
What I haven’t been able to test yet is how to make these APIs do things in a batch way, which is what I think many, if not most, PCC libraries will be turning to these APIs for. And the reason for that is I don’t have enough programming skills to know how to set up batch processes with these API’s, for example to search a list of names in a batch way or to submit a list of names for ISNI assignment in a batch way. I wish ISNI would provide more support for that, for example have a document that outlines what one has to do to set up a batch processing infrastructure, or better yet to have scripts (or script templates) that one can copy and reuse.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11RnMibXd0fCAujmqDKAUjnF1CpBUFx-a?usp=sharing