Aleks Drozdov – enterprise architect for Discovery system at the National Archive (TNA). Going to speak about APIs and Data and how implemented in Discovery system at TNA.<\/p>\n
My Introduction to APIs<\/a> post is relevant to this talk.<\/p>\n API and Data<\/strong><\/p>\n An API = Application Programming Interface.\u00a0Web API – in web context the API is typically defined as a set of messages over HTTP.\u00a0Response messages usually in XML or JSON format.<\/p>\n Data – explosion in amount of data available. Common to ‘mashup’ (combine) data from a number of sources. Also User contributed data.<\/p>\n Discovery Architecture<\/strong><\/p>\n At the base has a ‘Object Data Store’ – NoSQL object oriented database (MongoDB)<\/p>\n Getting data into Discovery<\/strong><\/p>\n Vast number of different formats feeding into Discovery:<\/p>\n XML, RDBMS, Text, Spreadsheets etc. Go through a complex\/sophisticated data normalisation process. Then fed into MongoDb \u00a0– the Object Data Store<\/p>\n Discovery data structure<\/strong><\/p>\n Discovery treats all things as ‘informational asset’ \u00a0– you can build hierarchies by links between assets<\/p>\n http:\/\/discovery.nationaarchives.gov.uk\/SearchUI\/details?Uri=C10127419<\/p>\n Last number here is a unique and persistent identifier for an information asset [not clear what level this is<\/p>\n Discovery API examples<\/strong><\/p>\n Documentation at\u00a0http:\/\/discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk\/SearchUI\/api.htm<\/a><\/p>\n API endpoint at: http:\/\/discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk\/DiscoveryAPI<\/p>\n Just 6 calls supported (see\u00a0http:\/\/discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk\/SearchUI\/api.htm)<\/p>\n Can specify xml or json as format for response: http:\/\/discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk\/DiscoveryAPI\/xml\/ or\u00a0http:\/\/discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk\/DiscoveryAPI\/json<\/p>\n Search: http:\/\/discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk\/DiscoveryAPI\/xml\/search\/{page}\/query= or\u00a0http:\/\/discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk\/DiscoveryAPI\/json\/search\/{page}\/query=<\/p>\n 3o results per page<\/p>\n e.g. http:\/\/discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk\/DiscoveryAPI\/json\/search\/1\/query=C%20203<\/a><\/p>\n