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Elsevier Geofacets APIs

What are the Geofacets APIs?

Geofacets APIs expose access to a comprehensive information solution that includes the most authoritative geology and geoscience resources available to answer today's most timely questions, de-risk investment decisions and improve efficiency and research outputs.

Who can use Geofacets APIs?

Geofacets APIs access is only granted to customers with a Geofacets subscription.

Where do I start?

Please visit the Elsevier Developer Portal to get started.

Where do I get an API key?

You can obtain an API Key on the Elsevier Developer Portal. If you do not already have an Elsevier user ID, you will need to register prior to obtaining an API Key. After obtaining an API Key, you will need to contact support to enable access to Geofacets APIs.

What do I get access to with my API key?

The default API Key configuration description is available here.

How do I get help?

Please visit Support page.

What are the benefits of using Geofacets APIs?

  • Direct access to real-time Geofacets data
  • RESTful architecture: stateless, scalable, portable and reliable platform
  • Ease of integration with client applications and/or directly with client web sites
  • Variety of supported API response formats
  • Interactive API documentation allows one to preview API requests and responses in any of the supported response formats directly from the Elsevier Developer portal

Use Cases

Geofacets encapsulates a search request method that enables a RESTful API client to perform an expert search across all or any combination of Geofacets databases. It also provides the ability to retrieve one or more records by unique document identifiers from these same databases.

Detailed policy:

Definition: incorporates within the client application a search tool that takes the user's query, passes it on to different search indexes through APIs, gets the results from those APIs and combines them into a single result list for the user to see. This practice is common in digital library portals at universities, and Geofacets's indexes are common targets for this. It also provides the ability to retrieve those results based on unique, individual document identifiers.

We allow this use case under the following conditions:

  • The developer of the federated search application needs to be an organization that has a license for Geofacets, or should be building the application for an organization who has a license
  • The organization is only allowed API access to Geofacets databases that are licensed on the Geofacets web site.
  • If the application is provided to Elsevier customers by a third-party vendor, this vendor is not allowed to differentiate the fees for the use of the application based on Geofacets data being in- or excluded by the application
  • The users of the application should be limited to authorized users at the organization holding the license
  • The application can only show the core abstract, author, and publisher data for each search and/or retrieval result from Geofacets - the record's indexing terms are off-limits
  • Results need to be marked as coming from Geofacets, and may link back to the article on the Geofacets web site.
  • The application can use the RESTful APIs.


How To Guide:
Geofacets Search Request

Interactive Geofacets APIs

Geofacets Swagger is available here

Geofacets APIs Specification

Please refer to the table below for a quick overview of Geofacets APIs, their corresponding purpose and response formats.
#    Geofacets API Name What it does Response formats
1 Geofacets Search API Provides Expert Search functionality against Geofacets databases. Expert Search provides search power and flexibility by incorporating advanced Boolean logic and including a rich variety of options. application/json
application/xml