Elsevier Developer Portal

The new Article Metadata API is designed for the following use cases:

• Advanced metadata "lookup" style searches
• Institutional repository and text & data mining applications

The Article Metadata API offers more advanced fielded search functionality than the new ScienceDirect Search API v2; however, the Article Metadata API does not permit full text searches and thus does not replicate the ScienceDirect web search experience at www.sciencedirect.com. For this reason, the new ScienceDirect Search API v2 is recommended for federated search applications.

If you have no requirement to match the ScienceDirect web search experience or conduct full text searches, than you should consider the Article Metadata API. IR and TDM applications will benefit from its more advanced fields, filters, and Boolean options.

The Article Metadata API will be offered as one RESTful interface:

Understanding the Article Metadata API

While well suited to federated search and general free text searches, the new ScienceDirect Search API v2 does not replicate all of the features and functionality of the deprecated ScienceDirect Search API. The latter was also used to populate institutional repositories and as a discovery tool for some TDM applications. These use cases require lookups on specific metadata and in some cases, more complex Boolean options.

Below is a typical example request rom the deprecated ScienceDirect Search API:

https://api.elsevier.com/content/search/scidir?query=affil(MIT)+AND+title(algorithm)&start=0&count=25

Using the new Article Metadata API, the request syntax and response payload would be identical to the above example, except for the URI:

https://api.elsevier.com/content/metadata/article?query=affil(MIT)+AND+title(algorithm)&start=0&count=25

Note the difference in the resource URI, i.e. /metadata/article. The request is otherwise structured in the same manner using the same parameters. Initially, the most frequently used fields for these use cases will be supported, with more to be added in the future. Please see the Article Metadata API search tips for a list of currently supported fields.

The Article Metadata API response payload will be very similar, as well (sample data shown):

{
    "search-results": {
        "opensearch:totalResults": "38",
        "opensearch:startIndex": "0",
        "opensearch:itemsPerPage": "1",
        "opensearch:Query": {
            "@role": "request",
            "@searchTerms": "affiliation(MIT) AND available-online-date AFT 20001201",
            "@startPage": "0"
        },
        "link": [
            {
                "@_fa": "true",
                "@ref": "self",
                "@href": "https://api.elsevier.com/content/metadata/article?start=0&count=1&query=affiliation%28MIT%29%2BAND%2Bavailable-online-date%2BAFT%2B20001201",
                "@type": "application/json"
            },
            {
                "@_fa": "true",
                "@ref": "first",
                "@href": "https://api.elsevier.com/content/metadata/article?start=0&count=1&query=affiliation%28MIT%29%2BAND%2Bavailable-online-date%2BAFT%2B20001201",
                "@type": "application/json"
            },
            {
                "@_fa": "true",
                "@ref": "next",
                "@href": "https://api.elsevier.com/content/metadata/article?start=1&count=1&query=affiliation%28MIT%29%2BAND%2Bavailable-online-date%2BAFT%2B20001201",
                "@type": "application/json"
            },
            {
                "@_fa": "true",
                "@ref": "last",
                "@href": "https://api.elsevier.com/content/metadata/article?start=37&count=1&query=affiliation%28MIT%29%2BAND%2Bavailable-online-date%2BAFT%2B20001201",
                "@type": "application/json"
            }
        ],
        "entry": [
            {
                "@_fa": "true",
                "link": [
                    {
                        "@_fa": "true",
                        "@ref": "self",
                        "@href": "https://api.elsevier.com/content/article/pii/S0045794907000727"
                    },
                    {
                        "@_fa": "true",
                        "@ref": "scidir",
                        "@href": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045794907000727"
                    }
                ],
                "dc:identifier": "DOI:10.1016/j.compstruc.2007.02.001",
                "prism:url": "https://api.elsevier.com/content/article/pii/S0045794907000727",
                "dc:title": "Preface",
                "dc:creator": "K.J., Bathe",
                "prism:publicationName": "Computers & Structures",
                "prism:issueName": "Fourth MIT Conference on Computational Fluid and Solid Mechanics",
                "prism:issn": "00457949",
                "prism:volume": "85",
                "prism:issueIdentifier": "11",
                "prism:coverDate": [
                    {
                        "@_fa": "true",
                        "$": "2007-06-01"
                    }
                ],
                "prism:coverDisplayDate": "June–July 2007",
                "prism:startingPage": "627",
                "prism:doi": "10.1016/j.compstruc.2007.02.001",
                "openaccess": "0",
                "openaccessArticle": false,
                "openArchiveArticle": false,
                "openaccessUserLicense": null,
                "pii": "S0045-7949(07)00072-7",
                "authors": {
                    "author": [
                        {
                            "@_fa": "true",
                            "given-name": "K.J.",
                            "surname": "Bathe"
                        }
                    ]
                },
                "prism:teaser": null
            }
        ]
    }
}