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e-rara: accessing metadata and fulltexts

The Python Jupyer notebook e_rara_metadata_fulltext.ipynb aims to help you with accessing metadata and fulltexts of e-rara, the platform for digitized rare books from Swiss institutions. It uses the OAI-PMH interface of the e-rara service for retrieving metadata in different formats, and the e-rara website in addition for downloading fulltexts.

No Python available on your machine? Use the online Jupyter notebook with Binder: Binder

Also, a static version of the notebook is available via Jupyter nbviewer.

The notebook consists of four parts:

  1. Introduction
  2. Metadata access with Polymatheia
  3. Direct metadata access via OAI-PMH
  4. Download fulltext files from e-rara website.

You may start from the beginning and walk trough the whole notebook or jump to the section that suits you. Also, it's a good idea to play around with the code in the cells and see what happens. Have fun!

Have any comments, questions and the like? Try kathi.woitas[at]unibe.ch.

Interested in more helpful code for data work in academia? Check out the Digital Toolbox of the University Library Bern!

0. Introduction

The introduction first offers an overview of the scope and contents of the notebook. After a short illustration of the e-rara platform finally there is a summary of main concepts of the OAI-PMH protocol.

1. Metadata access with Polymatheia

The chapter introduces the Polymatheia library, which allows very convenient requests to the OAI interface by wrapping otherwise more elaborate code. Also, it offers methods to handle the retrieved data. Working with Polymatheia is an easy solution for quick access without going deep into coding. You might see the documentation of the Polymatheia library.

The chapter makes use of the following OAI verbs:

  • oai: 'ListSets'
  • oai: 'ListMetadataFormats'
  • oai: 'ListRecords'.

Then, it shows how to access certain metadata elements and how to save and recover the retrieved data.

2. Direct metadata access via OAI-PMH

The Polymatheia library doesn't offer methods for all OAI verbs. For instance, there is no ListIdentifiers and no GetRecord wrapper. That's where more manual coding is needed. On the other hand accessing the e-rara OAI-PMH directly gives you more freedom how to interact with the interface, naturally. You can use the functions without deeper programming skills - nevertheless these might be helpful if you want to adapt those functions for yourself.

The chapter makes use of the follwing OAI verbs:

  • oai: 'Identify'
  • oai: 'GetRecord'
  • oai: 'ListIdentifiers'.

Therefore, it defines the following functions:

  • load_xml(params):

    Accesses the OAI interface according to given parameters and scrapes its content.

    Parameters:

    • All available native OAI verbs and parameter/value pairs.

  • download_record(ID, metadataPrefix='mods'):

    Downloads a certain metadata record from OAI to a single XML file. Throws a notice if metadata file already exists and leaves the existing one.

    Parameters:

    • ID = E-rara ID of the desired record.
    • metadataPrefix = Metadata format to be delivered. Default value is MODS.

  • set_size(Set):

    Accesses the OAI interface and retrieves the size of a given OAI set.

    Parameters:

    • Set: The 'setSpec' short cut of the desired OAI set.

  • retrieve_set_metadata(Set, foldername, metadataPrefix='mods'):

    Downloads metadata records of a given set and in a given format from OAI to XML files in a designated folder. Therefore it

    • requests e-rara OAI-PMH interface according to a set
    • creates a folder for the records according to parameter foldername
    • retrieves the set's e-rara IDs
    • retrieves metadata according to IDs and given metadata format (default: MODS)
    • saves metadata to single .xml files in the folder.

    Parameters:

    • Set = The 'setSpec' short cut of the desired OAI set.
    • foldername = The name of the folder which will be created to hold the metadata files.
    • metadataPrefix = Metadata format to be delivered. Default value is MODS.

3. Download fulltext files from e-rara website

Downloading e-rara fulltetxts in TXT format can be done from the e-rara website. Note, that not all e-rara items hold a fulltext file. When retrieving all fulltext files of a given OAI set (i.e. an e-rara collection), the OAI-PMH interface will be used in addition.

The chapter defines the following functions:

  • download_fulltext(ID):

    Downloads a certain fulltext file of TXT format. Builds with e-rara ID the fulltext URL, reads the TXT and saves it to .txt file on local disk.

    Parameter:

    • ID = E-rara ID of the desired record.

  • retrieve_set_fulltexts(Set, foldername):

    Downloads fulltext files of TXT format of a given OAI set to a certain folder. Builds with e-rara IDs the fulltext URLs, reads the TXT and saves them to .txt files on local disk. Therefore it

    • requests e-rara OAI-PMH interface according to a set
    • creates a folder according to parameter foldername
    • retrieves the set's e-rara IDs from OAI interface
    • retrieves fulltexts according to the IDs from e-rara website
    • writes fulltexts into single <e_rara_id>.txt files in the folder
    • finally checks all fulltext files in the folder if they are empty, and deletes those empty files.

    Parameters:

    • Set = The 'setSpec' short cut of the desired set.
    • foldername = The name of the folder which will be created to hold the fulltext files.