Alma Elsewhere: Using APIs to Sprinkle Data Around Your Organization

Abstract

You don't need to be a developer to understand the potential of ExLibris APIs. Of the four major API integration projects undertaken by University of St. Thomas Libraries over the past year, three didn’t even require the library to supply a single line of code. Students and faculty now access their requests, loans, and fines through the university’s portal, we’ve experimented with discovery, request, and renewals using a chat interface, and we will now start to ingest invoices into our campus finance system, all by pitching the power of ExLibris APIs to potential development partners. For beginners to intermediate, we’ll explore Ex Libris’s API Center, generate your first few API requests (bring your laptop or mobile device!), and introduce Postman (a free API tool). Best practices and security are also covered. Though Alma and Primo APIs are used as implementation examples, the main focus is getting comfortable using and leveraging APIs in general.