Names Project Web Services and repositories workshop Daniel Needham

What is the Names Project? A JISC funded project in collaboration with the British Library Aims to investigate the potential and requirements for a Name Authority Service As part of this a prototype service is under development Web Services and repositories workshop 02/06/09

Overview of the prototype Envisaged as a piece of middle ware Pulls in data from external sources and attempts to disambiguate unique entities Provides access to this data as a Web Service for use by external repositories and services Potential for data feedback from repositories through the web interface and user tool Web Services and repositories workshop 02/06/09

Architecture Web Services and repositories workshop 02/06/09 Data source – Web Service Data Source – Database Extract Name Authority Service DisambiguatorWeb Service Database Repository Other Client App

Repository use case Web Services and repositories workshop 02/06/09 Institutional Repository Item Submission Name Authority Service Retrieve NamesSearch Records Insert/Update record

Sample Output Associated Names Fields of Interest Titles Collaborative Relationships Associated Works Web Services and repositories workshop 02/06/09

Names as a Web Service Machine-to-machine access is provided via a RESTful(ish) url based query interface Flexibility of the interface is a requirement Allow people to easily hook up their system to utilize our records with the minimum of effort Provision of a variety of output formats Web Services and repositories workshop 02/06/09

Developing the service Developers were much more interested in RESTful interfaces than SOAP REST provides quicker development time –Less bloated –Quicker to hack something up with! Web Services and repositories workshop 02/06/09

Developing the service Working with Cranfield University to develop and validate the API Developing example code to demonstrate how the service could be utilised to pull in entity names into Dspace Investigating the possibility of sending data back from a remote client to the service Web Services and repositories workshop 02/06/09

Developing the service Web Services and repositories workshop 02/06/09

Pros Web services can help centralise and standardise functionality Web services can reduce duplication of work Build on each others work Do things we hadn't even considered But.. Web Services and repositories workshop 02/06/09

Cons In order to appeal to developers they need to be –Well documented –Quick to integrate –Flexible Reliability when integrated into external work flows Web Services and repositories workshop 02/06/09

Summary I'm interested to hear from anyone who can provide data on individuals for use in Names Also from anyone who would like to work with the API in it's current development state Web Services and repositories workshop 02/06/09

Further reading Good source of information on RESTful web services.. RESTful Web Services by Leonard Richardson, Sam Ruby ISBN: Web Services and repositories workshop 02/06/09