Library Technology | News

EBSCO Releases API for Discovery Service

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 06/11/12

EBSCO Publishing, which provides online research databases for libraries, has released a revamped tool to make it easier for their customers to provide search results in the interface of their choice but with EBSCO touches.

The company is now selling an upgraded EBSCO Discovery Tool Application Programming Interface (API), which allows a technical staff to reproduce the Discovery Service result list and detailed record exactly as seen in the EBSCO product or to customize the display to fit a different interface.

EBSCO's Discovery Service lets libraries integrate results from multiple sources and adds features such as relevancy ranking, full-text linking, persistent links, custom links, book jacket images, and other components. The addition of the API enables the display of EBSCO "premium content" results to appear as part of the library's own results. The API requires the use of EBSCOhost, the platform by which the company makes its content available to customers.

"EDS API gives libraries that are heavily invested in their [online public access catalog] or VuFind implementations, or that have developed their own solutions an easy integration option that greatly enhances every search with superior content and features," said Ron Burns, senior director of EBSCOhost product management. The API includes documentation, an XSD XML schema definition, sample XSLTs, a VuFind demo, and other sample applications and code. According to a company spokeswoman, pricing is based on a number of factors, particularly full-time enrollment of the institution that has adopted EBSCO Discovery Service.