Items Response Element
Items are an /edsapi/rest/retrieve endpoint response element provided as a way to easily present metadata in a format equivalent to the presentation in EBSCO's applications. The contents and format of the Items were designed by EBSCO editorial staff with both the particular database and the user of that database in mind.
The full set of Items available is returned in the response to an /edsapi/rest/retrieve request. The /edsapi/rest/Search request, returns only a subset of the possible Items depending on the view (title-only, brief, or detailed). Each database's help file contains a "Definition of Fields" for that database. The "Definition of Fields" is the complete list of Items (fields) you might see returned for that database. You should not assume that the /edsapi/rest/retrieve response will contain an Item for each of these fields. Not every record in a database contains all the possible metadata Items.
Anatomy of an Item
An Item element has 3 sub-elements:
- Label - A value that can be used for displaying a descriptive label for the contents of the data element.
- Group - A value that identifies the category of the Item. Ex: Au (Author), Ti (Title), TiAlt (Alternate Title), etc.
- Data - The value of the metadata item. The contents are provided with formatting instructions. If the formatting instructions are processed, the results will produce a higher quality presentation to the user.
{
"Name": "Title",
"Label": "Title",
"Group": "Ti",
"Data": "Evaluation of the Efficacy of Artificial Neural Network-Based Music Therapy for Depression."
},
Data Element of an Item
The Data element in an Item contains text that has been marked up with tags to provide formatting instructions or additional information about textual contents. Although some of the markup tags appear to be standard HTML, the tags can't be treated as standard HTML.
Formatting Tags
"Items": [
{
"Name": "Title",
"Label": "Title",
"Group": "Ti",
"Data": "<highlight>Water</highlight> : The final resource: How the politics of <highlight>water</highlight> will affect the world /"
},
]
The Data element above has markup to identify which words should be highlighted. Usually, the user's search term is highlighted. Applying CSS to the tag will make it easier for your users to see their search terms in the results and detailed record. Bolding the text or adding a yellow background could be applied.
Creating a Search Link from a Data->searchLink Element
A searchLink element can be found in the Data element. It provides the information required to construct a search link for the contents of the element.
The following example Item element contains a Data element. The Data element contains publication information. The journal name in the Data element is surrounded by searchLink tags to provide search information. The searchLink tags are separated by
tags (EBSCO's applications interpret these as line breaks).
{
"Name": "TitleSource",
"Label": "Source",
"Group": "Src",
"Data": "<searchLink fieldCode="JN" term="%22Computational+Intelligence+%26+Neuroscience%22">Computational Intelligence & Neuroscience</searchLink>. 8/21/2022, p1-6. 6p."
},
The following attributes of the searchLink can be used to construct a query parameter for the /edsapi/rest/Search endpoint:
- fieldCode - The field code to use with an /edsapi/rest/Search request.
- term - The exact URL encoded term to use with an /edsapi/rest/Search request.
If the example above is HTML entity decoded, it results in the following:
<searchLink fieldCode="JN" term="%22Computational+Intelligence+%26+Neuroscience%22">Computational Intelligence & Neuroscience</searchLink>
For the example above, create an HTML anchor tag that links back to your application by supplying the fieldCode and term values supplied on the query string. For a PHP type application, the href is the search.php page with the fieldCode and term attributes passed as parameters. See the example below.
<a href="search.php?term=%22Computational+Intelligence+%26+Neuroscience%22&fieldCode=JN">Computational Intelligence & Neuroscience</a>
On the server, construct a /edsapi/rest/Search request.
GET /edsapi/rest/Search?query=JN:%22Computational+Intelligence+%26+Neuroscience%22
For a GET request, the URL encoded value of the term should be used.
"Queries": [
{
"FieldCode": "JN",
"Term": "\"Computational Intelligence & Neuroscience\""
}
],
...
For a POST request, the term must first be URL decoded.
Group and Label Elements of a Data Item
| Group | Label Examples | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Ab | Abstract Abstract (English) Abstract (French) Abstract (German) Abstracts Brief Abstract Summary | Abstracts or other summaries of the item described by the record. Sometimes separated by language or type of abstract. |
| Au | Also known as Artist Authors Contributors Corporate Authors Editors Narrators Nickname Other Contributors Photographer Pseudonym Recording Artist Reviewers Translators | Contributors to the item described by the record. May vary by role or roles of the contributor to the item. May also contain variant names of these contributors. |
| Src | Journal Information Journal Source Publication Source Other Journal Title Book Source Collection | Preformatted parent/source information for the item described, often including values such as source journal/book/collection title, publication date, volume, issue, pagination, and illustration counts. |
| SrcInfo | Issue Journal Code Other Journal Titles Peer Reviewed Preceding Journal Title Publication Notes Source Notes Special Issue Title Succeeding Journal Title Translated Collection Title Translated Source Title Volume | One or more labels indicating data that relates to the parent/source information. May include variant source titles, source-level notes, or other data related to the source title. Occasionally used for values more commonly associated with the “Src” group (“Issue” for example) when displayed individually. |
| SrcSuprt | Department of Energy Information Funding Source Sources of Support Sponsors Sponsoring Agencies Sponsoring Agency Sponsoring Organizations | Sources of funding or sponsorship for a study described in the current record item. |
| Su | Additional Descriptors BISAC Subjects Categories Categories Children’s Subjects Company/Entity Descriptor Descriptors English Subjects General Subjects Genres Geographic Terms German Subjects Major Concepts Major Subjects Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) Minor Subjects Minor Terms People Subcategories Subject Subject Code Subject Heading Subject Terms Subjects Term | Subject headings/controlled vocabulary used for describing the content of the item. May consist of multiple labels per record where subject headings are broken into more than one displayable group (by language, by heading type, etc.). |
| Ti | Title | Primary title of the item described by the record. |
| TiAlt | Abbreviated Title Alternate Titles Citation Title English Title Former title Orig. Title Original Title Other Title Parallel Titles Subtitle Title Variations Translated Title Translation of Transliterated Title Variant Titles Volume Title | Alternate/variant titles or title parts that describe the item. |
| TiBk | Book Title Monograph Title Original Book Title Translated Monograph Title | Book titles associated with the item in question. May sometimes represent a book title being discussed by a record for a corresponding book review, rather than the source of the item. |
| TiSers | Book Series Series Series Title | The title of a book series for records describing book or book part (‘chapter’) items |
When Items are Not Sufficient for Your Use Case
As stated previously, Items are provided to facilitate presentation. The contents of Items are often constructed from multiple metadata properties. For example, a Source type Item might contain the name of a journal, the volume number and the issue number. It would be difficult (and not practically possible) to parse these values out of the Item. The EDS API data record provides the RecordInfo element for use cases such as this.
Updated 2 days ago