Ghent University Academic Bibliography API

# Provenance
#   generated: '2026-09-01'
#   method: derived
#   source: https://biblio.ugent.be/doc/api
#   x-operator: institution
#   note: Derived from Ghent University Library's own published "Download & API"
#     documentation for the Academic Bibliography. Every path and parameter below is
#     named on that page; every endpoint was probed live on 2026-09-01. Nothing was
#     invented. Ghent University Library publishes no OpenAPI of its own for this API.
openapi: 3.1.0
info:
  title: Ghent University Academic Bibliography API
  version: '2026-09-01'
  summary: Search, export and harvest 200 years of Ghent University research output.
  description: >-
    The Academic Bibliography (Biblio) is Ghent University's institutional
    publication and dataset registry, operated by Ghent University Library on the
    university's own host. It exposes a JSON/JSONP REST search API, per-record and
    bulk exports in fourteen bibliographic formats, an OAI-PMH 2.0 harvesting
    endpoint, an SRU 1.1 search service driven by CQL, a unAPI discovery service,
    RSS feeds and daily full-dataset dumps. Metadata is published under the Open
    Database License (ODbL).
  termsOfService: https://www.ugent.be/en/disclaimer
  contact:
    name: Ghent University Library
    email: libservice@ugent.be
    url: https://biblio.ugent.be/doc/api
  license:
    name: Open Database License (ODbL)
    url: http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/
servers:
  - url: https://biblio.ugent.be
    description: Production
tags:
  - name: Search
    description: REST search over publications and datasets.
  - name: Export
    description: Per-record and result-set exports in bibliographic formats.
  - name: OAI-PMH
    description: OAI-PMH 2.0 metadata harvesting.
  - name: SRU
    description: SRU 1.1 search/retrieve over CQL.
  - name: unAPI
    description: unAPI 1 alternate-format discovery.
  - name: Feeds
    description: RSS 1.0 feeds for any CQL search.
  - name: Dumps
    description: Daily full-dataset dumps under ODbL.
paths:
  /publication:
    get:
      tags: [Search]
      operationId: searchPublications
      summary: Search publications and datasets
      description: >-
        Returns a JSON result envelope. Adding a callback parameter returns JSONP
        wrapped in that function name.
      parameters:
        - name: q
          in: query
          description: CQL query. See the CQL index list in vocabulary/.
          schema: { type: string }
          example: dna
        - name: format
          in: query
          required: true
          schema: { type: string, enum: [json] }
        - name: sort
          in: query
          description: Comma-separated sort keys, each "field.asc" or "field.desc".
          schema: { type: string }
          example: year.desc,title.asc
        - name: limit
          in: query
          schema: { type: integer }
        - name: start
          in: query
          schema: { type: integer }
        - name: callback
          in: query
          description: JSONP callback function name.
          schema: { type: string }
      responses:
        '200':
          description: Search result envelope
          content:
            application/json:
              schema: { $ref: '#/components/schemas/SearchResult' }
            text/javascript:
              schema: { type: string, description: JSONP-wrapped SearchResult }
  /publication/{id}:
    get:
      tags: [Export]
      operationId: getPublication
      summary: Retrieve one publication in a chosen format
      parameters:
        - name: id
          in: path
          required: true
          schema: { type: string }
          example: '780271'
        - name: format
          in: query
          required: true
          schema: { $ref: '#/components/schemas/RecordFormat' }
      responses:
        '200':
          description: One publication record in the requested format
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                $ref: https://biblio.ugent.be/schema/publication.schema.latest.json
            text/plain: { schema: { type: string } }
            application/xml: { schema: { type: string } }
  /publication/export:
    get:
      tags: [Export]
      operationId: exportPublications
      summary: Export a result set (max 10,000 records)
      description: >-
        JSON and YAML exports are newline-delimited records, not an array. Use OAI-PMH
        or SRU for result sets larger than 10,000 records.
      parameters:
        - name: q
          in: query
          schema: { type: string }
        - name: format
          in: query
          required: true
          schema: { $ref: '#/components/schemas/RecordFormat' }
        - name: style
          in: query
          description: Citation style, for the txt and doc formats only.
          schema: { type: string }
      responses:
        '200':
          description: Newline-delimited or document export
          content:
            application/json: { schema: { type: string } }
  /person/{ugentId}/publication/export:
    get:
      tags: [Export]
      operationId: exportPersonPublications
      summary: Export one person's publications
      parameters:
        - { name: ugentId, in: path, required: true, schema: { type: string }, example: '801000947425' }
        - { name: format, in: query, required: true, schema: { $ref: '#/components/schemas/RecordFormat' } }
      responses:
        '200': { description: Export }
  /group/{ugentIds}/publication/export:
    get:
      tags: [Export]
      operationId: exportGroupPublications
      summary: Export publications for a comma-separated group of people
      parameters:
        - { name: ugentIds, in: path, required: true, schema: { type: string } }
        - { name: format, in: query, required: true, schema: { $ref: '#/components/schemas/RecordFormat' } }
      responses:
        '200': { description: Export }
  /organization/{id}/publication/export:
    get:
      tags: [Export]
      operationId: exportOrganizationPublications
      summary: Export publications of an organizational unit
      parameters:
        - { name: id, in: path, required: true, schema: { type: string }, example: PP02 }
        - { name: format, in: query, required: true, schema: { $ref: '#/components/schemas/RecordFormat' } }
      responses:
        '200': { description: Export }
  /organization/{id}/{year}/publication/export:
    get:
      tags: [Export]
      operationId: exportOrganizationYearPublications
      summary: Export publications of an organizational unit for one year
      parameters:
        - { name: id, in: path, required: true, schema: { type: string } }
        - { name: year, in: path, required: true, schema: { type: integer } }
        - { name: format, in: query, required: true, schema: { $ref: '#/components/schemas/RecordFormat' } }
      responses:
        '200': { description: Export }
  /project/{id}/publication/export:
    get:
      tags: [Export]
      operationId: exportProjectPublications
      summary: Export publications attached to a research project
      parameters:
        - { name: id, in: path, required: true, schema: { type: string } }
        - { name: format, in: query, required: true, schema: { $ref: '#/components/schemas/RecordFormat' } }
      responses:
        '200': { description: Export }
  /oai:
    get:
      tags: [OAI-PMH]
      operationId: oaiPmh
      summary: OAI-PMH 2.0 harvesting endpoint
      description: >-
        Repository identifier archive.ugent.be, repository name "Ghent University
        Institutional Archive", deletedRecord policy "persistent", granularity
        YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ. Verified live 2026-09-01.
      parameters:
        - name: verb
          in: query
          required: true
          schema:
            type: string
            enum: [Identify, ListMetadataFormats, ListSets, ListIdentifiers, ListRecords, GetRecord]
        - { name: metadataPrefix, in: query, schema: { type: string }, example: oai_dc }
        - { name: resumptionToken, in: query, schema: { type: string } }
        - { name: identifier, in: query, schema: { type: string }, example: 'oai:archive.ugent.be:1196384' }
        - { name: set, in: query, schema: { type: string } }
        - { name: from, in: query, schema: { type: string, format: date-time } }
        - { name: until, in: query, schema: { type: string, format: date-time } }
      responses:
        '200':
          description: OAI-PMH response envelope
          content:
            application/xml:
              schema: { type: string }
              externalValue: ../examples/ghent-biblio-oai-identify.xml
  /sru:
    get:
      tags: [SRU]
      operationId: sruSearchRetrieve
      summary: SRU 1.1 search/retrieve over CQL
      description: >-
        The scan and explain operations and result sets are not supported. Only the
        default CQL context set is available.
      parameters:
        - { name: version, in: query, required: true, schema: { type: string, enum: ['1.1'] } }
        - { name: operation, in: query, required: true, schema: { type: string, enum: [searchRetrieve] } }
        - { name: query, in: query, required: true, schema: { type: string }, example: 'title any "dna loci"' }
        - { name: maximumRecords, in: query, schema: { type: integer } }
        - { name: startRecord, in: query, schema: { type: integer } }
        - { name: sortKeys, in: query, schema: { type: string }, example: 'year,,0' }
      responses:
        '200':
          description: SRU searchRetrieveResponse
          content:
            text/xml: { schema: { type: string } }
  /unapi:
    get:
      tags: [unAPI]
      operationId: unapi
      summary: unAPI 1 alternate-format discovery
      description: >-
        With no parameters, returns the list of formats available for all records.
        With id, the formats for one record. With id and format, the record itself.
      parameters:
        - { name: id, in: query, schema: { type: string }, example: '2003357' }
        - { name: format, in: query, schema: { $ref: '#/components/schemas/RecordFormat' } }
      responses:
        '200':
          description: unAPI formats document or a record
          content:
            application/xml: { schema: { type: string } }
  /siteindex.xml:
    get:
      tags: [Search]
      operationId: siteIndex
      summary: Sitemap index listing all records
      description: A lightweight way to harvest every record URL.
      responses:
        '200':
          description: Sitemap index
          content:
            text/xml: { schema: { type: string } }
  /feed/{interval}:
    get:
      tags: [Feeds]
      operationId: getFeed
      summary: RSS 1.0 feed for any CQL search
      parameters:
        - name: interval
          in: path
          required: true
          schema: { type: string, enum: [hourly, daily, weekly, monthly] }
        - { name: q, in: query, schema: { type: string }, example: 'affiliation exact GE12' }
      responses:
        '200':
          description: RSS feed
          content:
            application/rss+xml: { schema: { type: string } }
  /exports/publications.csv:
    get:
      tags: [Dumps]
      operationId: dumpCsv
      summary: Daily full dataset, comma-separated (~370MB; .zip variant ~130MB)
      responses:
        '200': { description: CSV dump, content: { text/csv: { schema: { type: string } } } }
  /exports/publications.json:
    get:
      tags: [Dumps]
      operationId: dumpJson
      summary: Daily full dataset, newline-delimited JSON (~2.2GB; .zip variant ~370MB)
      description: Records conform to the publication JSON Schema in json-schema/.
      responses:
        '200': { description: NDJSON dump, content: { application/json: { schema: { type: string } } } }
  /exports/publications-mods36.xml:
    get:
      tags: [Dumps]
      operationId: dumpMods36
      summary: Daily full dataset, MODS 3.6 (~3.3GB; .zip variant ~320MB)
      responses:
        '200': { description: MODS dump, content: { application/xml: { schema: { type: string } } } }
components:
  schemas:
    RecordFormat:
      type: string
      description: Export formats named in the Academic Bibliography documentation.
      enum:
        - json
        - yaml
        - bibtex
        - ris
        - csv
        - xlsx
        - rdf
        - mods
        - mods_vabb
        - mods_36
        - mods_fwo
        - dc
        - mets
        - didl
        - txt
        - doc
    SearchResult:
      type: object
      properties:
        hits:
          type: array
          description: Publication records.
          items:
            $ref: https://biblio.ugent.be/schema/publication.schema.latest.json
        limit: { type: integer }
        total: { type: integer }
        size: { type: integer }
        start: { type: integer }