EBSCOhost

EBSCOhost Integration Toolkit

Services

Introduction

In order to better serve our Data Partners, EBSCO Publishing (EP) has developed a Web Service application that allows our Data Partners to submit search/retrieval and browse requests to EBSCOhost via the HTTP/SOAP protocol or HTTP/GET protocol and receive XML as a response format. This allows the EBSCOhost Integration Toolkit (EIT) web service to be called from a wide variety of client applications. The Data Partner can then format the XML to help fit the needs of their applications.

This document is intended to provide web developers with the necessary information in order to incorporate EBSCOhost functionality into their Web site. It describes the basic architecture and presents the services and their operations and parameters.

Requesting Data

EIT services are stateless. This means that all calls made to EIT services will require the user's profile and password or IP information. The benefit that the stateless model provides to the Data Partners is that the developer(s) does not have to manage and maintain session related information in order to call EIT services.

The following two methods can be used when requesting data from an EIT service:

  1. Representational State Transfer (REST) is an architectural style for distributed hypermedia systems. Using REST, you supply URL with the needed parameters using the HTTP GET protocol and receive back data in simple XML format. More information on REST can be found in Roy Fielding's Ph.D. dissertation.
  2. SOAP is a lightweight protocol intended for exchanging structured information in a decentralized, distributed environment. Using SOAP, you can easily generate client proxies and request data from EIT with a number of standard development platforms. More information on SOAP can be found on the W3C web site.

Service Descriptions

Detailed information as well as test pages on each EIT service and their operations can be found on this site in the form of XHTML pages by clicking on each item's link. Additional information can be found by downloading the WSDL file for each service. The Web Services Description Language (WSDL, pronounced 'wiz-dull' or spelled out, 'W-S-D-L') is an XML-based language that provides a model for describing Web services. More information on WSDLs can be found on the W3C web site.

The following service(s) are currently supported by EIT:

SearchService
The Search Service provides access to EBSCOhost powerful reference system through a variety of proprietary web methods. Using this service, you can search and browse full text databases and popular databases from leading information providers. The comprehensive databases range from general reference collections to specially designed, subject-specific databases for public, academic, medical, corporate and school libraries.
NovelistSelect
NoveList Select brings the expertise of NoveList directly to your catalog and points your readers to the titles that are in your collection. With NoveList Select’s Find More Like function, NoveList suggests not only books they are similar to popular, high-demand authors but points your readers at the readalikes that are sitting on your shelf. When the best-selling or popular titles that your readers are looking for are either checked out or have long hold queues, clicking on our Find More Like link executes a search of NoveList’s 4 million Title database, this search retrieves titles that are similar to the book your reader is interested in and sorts these results by popularity. The titles that your readers see are not only based on NoveList’s readers’ advisory expertise but are in and available for check-out.

Sample Clients

Download client sample code for Java and C#.