From WorldCat Developers' Network

WorldCat Search API: Service Levels

The WorldCat API has two levels of service. Based upon whether or not you are able to determine the library affiliation of the users of your API-based application, you may present a full set of indexes and data or a partial set. The partial set is equivalent to what is offered in the WorldCat.org user interface.

Full Service

If you are able to determine that the users of your application are library staff, patrons with library cards, students of academic libraries, or patrons within the library, you can present the most complete set of indexes and data that the WorldCat API provides. Determining this library affiliation is expected to be similar to authenticating library users for most licensed databases, such as those offered by Proquest or FirstSearch.

Default Service

If you are not able to determine the library affiliation of users of your API-based application, the WorldCat API will support indexes and data at the level currently offered to WorldCat.org visitors. For these users, we require that you provide a path to obtain library holdings information as appropriate in your user interface when WorldCat data is presented, with links to participating library OPACs. The WorldCat API provides the OPAC URLs to support these links. The display of library holdings works best when the end user’s location (IP address, ZIP code, or country) can be provided in the link.

Configuring Service Levels in API Applications

The WorldCat Search API documentation describes how to profile and communicate the appropriate service level for your application. The WorldCat Search API Indexes provides additional information on the index options. And also check out the Tips for specific indexes.

Comparing Service Levels

	Full Service	Default Service
Searchable indexes	All supported indexes	WorldCat.org indexes and the Dewey index
Metadata presented	Full bibliographic data	Limited to fields presented in WorldCat.org
Holdings information	Holdings for all known libraries	Holdings of WorldCat.org participating libraries
Link to holding Libraries and their OPACs	Optional	Required

Full Service Indexes and Data

Indexes:

OCLC number
Keyword
Title (word and phrase)
Author (word and phrase)
Personal Name (word and phrase)
Corporate/Conference Name (word and phrase)
Subject (word and phrase)
Publisher (word and phrase)
Place of publication (word)
Series (word and phrase)
Standard number (word)
ISBN (word)
ISSN (word)
Publisher and music number (word)
Government document Number (word)
LCCN (word)
LC Class number (word)
Dewey Class number (word)
Note (word)
Access Method (word)

As limits only:

Primary document type
Material type
Year
Primary Language
Language
DLC limit
Library holdings
Library holdings group

Data: Full bibliographic record

Holdings: All holdings information and OPAC links of known libraries

Default Service Indexes and Data

Indexes:

OCLC number
Keyword
Title (word)
Author (word)
Subject (word)
ISBN
ISSN

As limits only:

Primary document type
Material type
Year
Primary Language
Dewey Class number
Library holdings

Data found in the following MARC fields (http://www.oclc.org/bibformats/en/):

OCLC Number: 001
Date and date type found in the 008
Language value in the 008, 041, 546
Document and material type (derived from many fields)
Authorship: 100, 700, 110, 710, 111, 711, 720, 130
Title: 222, 240, 243, 245, 246, 730, 740
Citation: 250, 254, 255, 256, 260, 261, 262, 263, 300, 502, 773, 856
Series: 440 490
Standard numbers: 020, 022
Subjects: 600, 610, 630, 650, 651, 655
Note: 500, 538, 586
Content: 505
Abstract/Summary: 520
Non-Latin text for the above fields found in the 880

Holdings: All holdings information and OPAC links of libraries participating in WorldCat.org

From WorldCat Developers' Network

WorldCat Search API: Service Levels

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