Europeana API 2.0

2012-11-06

The preview launch of the new Europeana API has just happened. The API is based on Europeana's new metadata schema, the Europeana Data Model. The previous version was based on Europeana Semantic Elements, which is an extended Dublin Core schema. This new schema separates different entities, and is close to some semantic principles.

The new things of the API:

The API is based on Europeana's new metadata schema, the Europeana Data Model (http://pro.europeana.eu/web/guest/edm-documentation). The previous version was based on Europeana Semantic Elements, which is an extended Dublin Core schema. This new schema separates different entities, and is close to some semantic principles.

It is more close to the Europeana portal. You can access more features (such as breadcrumb, facets, related items and so on).

It is based on Solr 4.0 and MongoDB 2.0.

There is an API console, where you can test the possibilities without signing up for the API key (http://preview.europeana.eu/portal2/api/console.html)

Two month ago Europeana with the help of data providers changed the right policies, and now all metadata records are licensed under CC0 waiver (you can find more, and details here: http://pro.europeana.eu/web/guest/data-exchange-agreement).

You can find the API Terms of Usage here: http://preview.europeana.eu/portal2/rights/api-terms-of-use.html.

The API registration process thus became very simple. Previously the usage of the API were limited to a number of domains, so every API requests had to consider individually. Now it is fully automatic.
(http://preview.europeana.eu/portal2/api/registration.html)

The limit of usage is 10 000 API calls per day. If you would like to extend this limit, please contact Europeana. Europeana has also a mailing list for discussiing API-related things: https://groups.google.com/forum/?pli=1#!forum/europeanaapi, and an initial version of documentation:
http://preview.europeana.eu/portal2/api-documentation.html