Help: URL API Specification

Frequently Asked Questions

What's an "API"?

The acronym stands for "application programming interface." It's a mechanism that allows programmers to call functions within another application. In this case, you will be constructing a URL rather than writing a computer program. The application you will send instructions to is the LexisNexis Academic service itself, and you will be able to call the following three functions.

• Document-level link - retrieves a specific document.
• Source-level link - opens the Power Search form and populates the source selection options to facilitate user-initiated searching of a specific source.
• Search form link - open any search form in LexisNexis Academic.
• The URL API is also used to support third-party vendors who provide article linking and federated search software to academic libraries. The developers of these systems can use the API to link authorized user automatically to full text documents in the LexisNexis Academic service. In the case of link resolvers, the required document is identified from a citation in a source database and, once LexisNexis Academic is identified as an appropriate target database, the API is used to deliver the full text document. Federated search services can use the API in a similar way, to link from a citation in their results list to the full-text document in LexisNexis Academic.

Do I Have To Install Anything?

No. The URL API Specification simply provides directions for constructing URLs. The API does all the work of interpreting these URLs within LexisNexis Academic.