API Tool e-rara & e-manuscripta

Metadata, full texts, entities and more

Download a title

One input for all downloads of a work: VLID (), link or DOI (). One selection gives a single file, several give a ZIP. blocks content marked Proxy for browser scripts; without a proxy it appears as direct links.

Work
Content
Options

The metadata format applies to XML, JSON and CSV. Without a proxy, JSON and CSV are taken from the catalogue data in the IIIF manifest (title, author, imprint, extent, holding institution, DOI); with a proxy, from Dublin Core or MODS.

Pages

Either work + image number(s) – the work as VLID, DOI or link, image numbers such as 30, 1-3, 30-35 or all – or just a page VLID or a link from the page view. The image number counts the digitised images from 1 and usually differs from the printed page number. All functions in this section work without a proxy.

Selection
Image options (for preview and «Image(s)»)
Image size

Width in pixels; the height follows from the aspect ratio. «Full resolution» gives the largest file.

Region

Which part of the page is returned; the image size then refers to this region.

Rotation

Mirroring is applied before rotation.

Colour

Greyscale and black and white produce smaller files and are well suited to printing and text recognition.

IIIF request: · Format always JPEG ( only delivers JPEG) · Parameters as per IIIF Image API 2.0

Several pages: text as one file with separator lines, images and ALTO as a ZIP.

Harvest a collection

Metadata of a set or time period via OAI-PMH. returns 10 records per request; 1000 records take about 1–2 minutes. Additional content per title increases the run time considerably.

Selection
Period (added/modified)
Output

Rule of thumb: for a table, choose oai_dc (compact) or mods (detailed) with CSV; for software, JSON; for structure, files and archiving, mets/arcmets as XML.

Additionally per title (optional)

CORS-Proxy (optional)

e-rara and e-manuscripta allow browser scripts to access full texts, entities and IIIF, but not OAI-PMH, RIS, PDF or DOI resolution. A CORS proxy forwards such requests and thereby enables harvesting, platform details and the conversion of Dublin Core/MODS into CSV/JSON.

{url} is replaced by the (encoded) e-rara or e-manuscripta address; without {url} the address is appended. Public proxies see all requests and are often throttled – for regular use, run your own proxy (instructions).

What works how?

Contentwithout proxywith proxy
Full text of title/page (text, ALTO), entities (MADS, JSON, CSV), IIIF manifest, imagesyesyes
e-manuscripta: no entities; full texts page by page under «Pages» only.
Title details, preview, page selectionyes (from IIIF)yes
Metadata XML (oai_dc, mods, mets …), RIS, PDFas a direct linkyes, also in the ZIP
Metadata as JSON/CSVsimplified (from IIIF)Dublin Core / MODS
DOI as inputvia DataCite (if reachable)yes
Harvest a collection, check count, platform detailsno (links to the OAI interface)yes