The base URL for the API is cloud.europeana.eu/api
To use the API one needs a user. Obtain one from the Europeana Cloud team.
The part of the Tutorial below gives examples and demonstrates the API calls using the popular command line utility cURL for submitting HTTP requests. One can use other tools to submit HTTP requests if desired.
In the future we'll also provide convenient client-side libraries in popular languages, such as Java.
In the examples below user credentials are provided using the --user parameter

Data Providers

Each piece of data uploaded to Europeana Cloud has to be owned by a data provider. You can manage the data providers - create or update them - using the API. Let's start with creating one. This is done using the /data-providers method.

Creation

In order to create a data provider you need to use this request. You need to provide a unique identifier for the provider in the providerId parameter. You can specify additional properties and send them as JSON in data block:

...

Code Block

language	bash

 {  
   "active":true,
   "id":"PSNC",
   "partitionKey":2465528,
   "properties":{  
      "contactPerson":"office@man.poznan.pl",
      "digitalLibraryURL":"http://lib.psnc.pl/dlibra",
      "digitalLibraryWebsite":"Repozytorium Instytucjonalne",
      "officialAddress":"ul. Jana Pawła II 10, Poznań",
      "organisationName":"Poznańskie Centrum Superkomputerowo - Sieciowe Afiliowane przy Instytucie Chemii Bioorganicznej PAN",
      "organisationWebsite":"Poznańskie Centrum Superkomputerowo - Sieciowe Afiliowane przy Instytucie Chemii Bioorganicznej PAN",
      "organisationWebsiteURL":"http://www.man.poznan.pl",
      "remarks":"Integracja i rozwój infrastruktury informatycznej nauki"
   }
}

Identifiers

Creation

Every record has a unique identifier in Europeana Cloud. We call these identifiers "global". A record can also have an identifier in its original system; these identifiers are referred to as “local”.

...

Code Block

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<cloudId>
   <id>745XTNGBTQBVVFFZ7XF5QETU7ECIUGHKUXBJ3DNRIN3WCKRPOVVQ</id>
   <localId>
      <providerId>PSNC</providerId>
      <recordId>4TIRTYXNTQ2LNDWWVDKMK6TJJMJJM3I6WO4IBIDB6ORYXQB5TZIQ</recordId>
   </localId>
</cloudId>

Listing

You can browse all the global ids associated with a specific data provider using the /cloudIds REST endpoint:

...

Now you are ready to fill Europeana Cloud with some data.

Records, Representations and Files

A record is the central entity of the storage system. It has a global identifier and and consists of several representations.

Representations

Lets get back to our example in the Data Model section. Say that you want to create a record out of the three files you have. Each one will be stored in a different representation. Creating new representations is done using the /records REST endpoint:

...

Subsequent versions of a representation can be created further in the future, for example to reflect ongoing work on a file.

Files and Versions

You just created metadata entries for your data representations. Now it’s time to attach real data to them. For this the /versions REST endpoint is used. For example, to add a thumbnail file to a previously created representation thumbnail:

...

A successful call will return 201 HTTP Code.

Deletion

Versions can be deleted using the DELETE call as follows:

...

You can only delete a temporary version of a representation. If you will try to remove a persistent version you will get HTTP status code 405 (Not Allowed).

Datasets

Datasets in Europeana Cloud are a way to group records for thematic or operational reasons. One record can belong to many datasets.

Creation

To create a new dataset, use the /dataset call where you specify the name of the dataset.

Code Block
curl -X POST --user user:password -H "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" -d 'dataSetId=exampleDataSet' -i https://cloud.europeana.eu/api/data-providers/PSNC/data-sets

Modification

Having created one, you can assign your representation versions to this dataset. To do this use the /assignments call providing the global id, the representation name and the version identifier. If you don't provide the version identifier parameter, the latest persistent version will be assigned to data set.

...

Code Block

curl -X DELETE --user user:password -H "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" -i https://cloud.europeana.eu/api/data-providers/PSNC/data-sets/exampleDataSet/assignments?cloudId=X67WPA7NGCZUKLACPWU3BORRGQUWTKSZNZDICEGZS6IXTRMINOIQ\&representationName=thumbnail

Listing

To view the content of a dataset, use the /data-sets REST endpoint when providing the data provider id and the dataset id.

Code Block
curl -X GET -H "Accept: application/xml" --user user:password -i https://cloud.europeana.eu/api/data-providers/PSNC/data-sets/exampleDataSet/

Deletion

To delete the dataset use the /data-sets REST endpoint when providing the data provider id and the dataset id.

Code Block
curl -X DELETE -H "Accept: application/json" --user user:password -i https://cloud.europeana.eu/api/data-providers/PSNC/data-sets/exampleDataSet/

Permissions

Permission Granularity

In Europeana Cloud access to data entities is governed by permissions assigned to these entities. The way these permissions represent our policies on access and rights will be based on the general principles listed in the Europeana Cloud Access Framework.

In the current version access is managed on the level of files. That means that data owners can grant or revoke access to files owned by them. In future versions we will consider extending permission management also to higher levels: representations, records or datasets.

Using Permissions

Taking our example, assume that you want to make your thumbnail files publicly available. For this use the /permit REST call to to change permissions for thumbnail representations of your records.

...

In the URL above you should replace 'permission' with one of the values: read, write, delete, administration, all. 'anotherUser' should be replaced with a username.

Friendly URLs

Sometimes it is hard for a client to get the global identifier of a record, generated version name of a representation and generated filename. On the other hand the client has got a local record identifier which is well known. The same may be in case of a filename. In order to access files without retrieving the hard to remember identifiers and names mechanism of friendly URLs was introduced. The idea behind it is to use in URLs well known values (identifiers, names, etc.) always in the same way. Here we will go through the tutorial steps using friendly URLs where it is possible.

Record

Normally when you know the cloud identifier of a record you can access it using URL like this:

Code Block
https://cloud.europeana.eu/api/records/X67WPA7NGCZUKLACPWU3BORRGQUWTKSZNZDICEGZS6IXTRMINOIQ

If you remember from the beginning of this tutorial, this record was created for PSNC data provider together with local identifier which was exampleLocalRecord. So now we have only two values: name of the data provider (PSNC) and identifier used by this data provider (exampleLocalRecord). To get access to this record in Europeana Cloud using just these two values we can use friendly URL like this:

Code Block
curl -X GET -H "Accept: application/json" --user user:password -i https://cloud.europeana.eu/api/data-providers/PSNC/records/exampleLocalRecord

Representation

Sometimes it is necessary to get access to a specific representation. Again, instead of retrieving the global identifier we can use well known values like data provider name, local record identifier and representation name. Let's display information about the TIFFrepresentation using the friendly URL:

Code Block
curl -X GET -H "Accept: application/json" --user user:password -i https://cloud.europeana.eu/api/data-providers/PSNC/records/exampleLocalRecord/representations/TIFF

File

If you do not want to have files with names generated by the system there is possibility to specify the name in the insert request. We can add a file to TIFF representation and specify a name for it like this:

Code Block

curl -X POST --user user:password -H "Content-Type: multipart/form-data" -F "mimeType=image/tiff" -F "data=@tiff.tiff" -F "fileName=abc" https://cloud.europeana.eu/api/records/X67WPA7NGCZUKLACPWU3BORRGQUWTKSZNZDICEGZS6IXTRMINOIQ/representations/TIFF/versions/27ae2a60-3ebf-11e6-b03d-fa163e8d4ae3/files

As you can see the specified filename is abc. Now we can use it to access this file in Europeana Cloud via friendly URL.

Note
Just remember that a file will not be accessible until you make its representation persistent.

Code Block
curl -X GET -H "Accept: application/json" --user user:password -i https://cloud.europeana.eu/api/data-providers/PSNC/records/exampleLocalRecord/representations/TIFF/abc

Filename used instead of a generated one can be also much more complex. It can for example contain / characters like in the absolute path. We can take a look at the real example provided by Europeana Newspapers.

Code Block

https://cloud.europeana.eu/api/data-providers/TheEuropeanLibrary/records/3000100349685/representations/presentation_images/node-2/image/NLE/???????????_??????????_?????????_=_Livländische_Gouvernements-Zeitung/1862/01/03/18620103_1-0001.jp2

As you can see the filename used here (node-2/image/NLE/???????????_??????????_?????????_=_Livländische_Gouvernements-Zeitung/1862/01/03/18620103_1-0001.jp2) is not only long with / characters but also contains unicode characters. We can also extract other well known values from this URL: data provider - TheEuropeanLibrary, local record identifier - 3000100349685, representation name - presentation_images.

Future Work and Contact

Europeana Cloud is now in its alpha phase. During the remainder of the project we’ll improve the platform and the API based on the feedback from the community.

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Page tree

Versions Compared

Old Version 18

New Version 19

Key

Data Providers

Creation

Identifiers

Creation

Listing

Records, Representations and Files

Representations

Files and Versions

Deletion

Datasets

Creation

Modification

Listing

Deletion

Permissions

Permission Granularity

Using Permissions

Friendly URLs

Record

Representation

File

Future Work and Contact

Page tree

Page History

Versions Compared

Old Version 18

New Version 19

Key

Data Providers

Creation

Identifiers

Creation

Listing

Records, Representations and Files

Representations

Files and Versions

Deletion

Datasets

Creation

Modification

Listing

Deletion

Permissions

Permission Granularity

Using Permissions

Friendly URLs

Record

Representation

File

Future Work and Contact