{"id":582,"date":"2009-11-02T15:03:38","date_gmt":"2009-11-02T14:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/?p=582"},"modified":"2009-11-02T15:03:38","modified_gmt":"2009-11-02T14:03:38","slug":"accessing-sconul-access","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/2009\/11\/accessing-sconul-access\/","title":{"rendered":"Accessing Sconul Access"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a very quick lunchtime post to document a script I’ve been working on over the last week or so. SCONUL Access<\/a> is a scheme that offers reciprocal access to various university libraries across the UK.<\/p>\n

The SCONUL Access website allows you to enter details of a UK university affiliation, and then will list details of those libraries which you can use via the reciprocal agreement scheme (you have to apply for a SCONUL access card at your ‘home’ institution before you can use the other libraries).<\/p>\n

I’ve occasionally thought it would be nice to do something like map the results of a SCONUL access enquiry on a Google map, or integrate the question of ‘which libraries can I use’ with ‘where can I get a book’ – so that users could potentially do a search of all the libraries they can access (perhaps limited by a geographical radius?). Aside from these ideas, the SCONUL Access directory actually contains quite a bit of useful information on each library it lists – including the insitution website, the library website and the library catalogue URL.<\/p>\n

Further, I was recently inspired by Philip Adams from Leicester (@Fulup<\/a>) on Twitter who pointed me at http:\/\/www.library.dmu.ac.uk\/Resources\/OPAC\/index.php?page=366 which combines information from SCONUL access with the Talis Silkworm directory<\/a> to show SCONUL Access libraries (relevant to those at the University of Leicester I guess) on Google Maps.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately the SCONUL Access website doesn’t provide an API to query the data it has on the libraries, so I thought I’d start writing something. I haven’t (yet anyway) tried to replicate the function that SCONUL access provide of taking user details, and giving a list of available libraries – to get this function you still have to go to SCOUNL Access website and fill in their forms<\/a>. What my script does is simply provide SCONUL Access member library details in an XML format. The script lives at:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/sconulaccess<\/a><\/p>\n

It supports three modes of use:<\/p>\n

1. Summary of all SCONUL Access libraries<\/strong>
\nURL: http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/sconulaccess<\/a>
\nFunction: returns a summary of all institutions participating in SCONUL Access from their A-Z Listing<\/a>. This XML (see below for format) only includes the SCONUL Access (internal) code for the library, the name of the institution and the URL for the full SCONUL Access record<\/p>\n

2. Full records for specified SCONUL Access libraries<\/strong>
\nURL: http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/sconulaccess\/? e.g. http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/sconulaccess\/?institution=2,3,4<\/a>
\nFunction: returns full records for each institution specified by its SCONUL Access ID in the URL (see full XML structure below)<\/p>\n

3. Full records for all SCONUL Access libraries<\/strong>
\nURL: http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/sconulaccess\/?institution=all<\/a>
\nFunction: similar to 2 but returns full records for all institutions that are obtained via 1. This takes some time to return results as it retrieves over 180 records from the SCONUL Access website – so it isn’t recommended for general use.<\/p>\n

XML Structure<\/strong><\/p>\n

<sconul_access_results>
\n <institution code=”4″ name=”Aston University”>
\n  <inst_sconul_url>
\n    http:\/\/www.access.sconul.ac.uk\/members\/institution_html?ins_id=4
\n  <\/inst_sconul_url>
\n  <website>http:\/\/www.aston.ac.uk\/<\/website>
\n  <library_website>http:\/\/www1.aston.ac.uk\/lis\/<\/library_website>
\n  <library_catalogue>http:\/\/library.aston.ac.uk\/<\/library_catalogue>
\n  <contact_name>Anne Perkins<\/contact_name>
\n  <contact_title>Public Services Coordinator<\/contact_title>
\n  <contact_email>a.v.perkins@aston.ac.uk<\/contact_email>
\n  <contact_telephone>01212044492<\/contact_telephone>
\n  <contact_postcode>B4 7ET<\/contact_postcode>
\n <\/institution>
\n <source>
\n  <source_url>http:\/\/www.access.sconul.ac.uk\/<\/source_url>
\n  <rights>Copyright SCONUL. SCONUL, 102 Euston Street, London, NW1 2HS. <\/rights>
\n <\/source>
\n<\/sconul_access_results><\/p>\n

The <institution> element is repeatable.
\nFor (1) above the only elements returned are:
\n<institution>
\n<\/inst_sconul_url>
\n<source> (and subelements)<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’d be interested in comments, and would be happy to look at alternative functions and formats – let me know if there is anything you’d like to see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a very quick lunchtime post to document a script I’ve been working on over the last week or so. SCONUL Access is a scheme that offers reciprocal access to various university libraries across the UK. The SCONUL Access website allows you to enter details of a UK university affiliation, and then will list […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":593,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions\/593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}