Ebook API integration
Evergreen supports integration with third-party APIs provided by OverDrive and OneClickdigital.
When ebook API integration is enabled, the following features are supported:
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Bibliographic records from these vendors that appear in your public catalog will include vendor holdings and availability information.
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Patrons can check out and place holds on OverDrive and OneClickdigital ebook titles from within the public catalog.
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When a user is logged in, the public catalog dashboard and My Account interface will include information about that user’s checkouts and holds for supported vendors.
| The ability to check out and place holds on ebook titles is an experimental feature in 3.0. It is not recommended for production use without careful testing. |
For API integration to work, you need to request API access from the
vendor and configure your Evergreen system according to the instructions
below. You also need to configure the new open-ils.ebook_api service.
This feature assumes that you are importing MARC records supplied by the vendor into your Evergreen system, using Vandelay or some other MARC import method. This feature does not search the vendor’s online collections or automatically import vendor records into your system; it merely augments records that are already in Evergreen.
A future Evergreen release will add the ability for users to check out titles, place holds, etc., directly via the public catalog.
Ebook API service configuration
This feature uses the new open-ils.ebook_api OpenSRF service. This
service must be configured in your opensrf.xml and opensrf_core.xml
config files for ebook API integration to work. See
opensrf.xml.example and opensrf_core.xml.example for guidance.
OverDrive API integration
Before enabling OverDrive API integration, you will need to request API access from OverDrive. OverDrive will provide the values to be used for the following new org unit settings:
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OverDrive Basic Token: The basic token used for API client authentication. To generate your basic token, combine your client key and client secret provided by OverDrive into a single string ("key:secret"), and then base64-encode that string. On Linux, you can use the following command:
echo -n "key:secret" | base64 - -
OverDrive Account ID: The account ID (a.k.a. library ID) for your OverDrive API account.
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OverDrive Website ID: The website ID for your OverDrive API account.
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OverDrive Authorization Name: The authorization name (a.k.a. library name) designated by OverDrive for your library. If your OverDrive subscription includes multiple Evergreen libraries, you will need to add a separate value for this setting for each participating library.
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OverDrive Password Required: If your library’s OverDrive subscription requires the patron’s PIN (password) to be provided during patron authentication, set this setting to "true." If you do not require the patron’s PIN for OverDrive authentication, set this setting to "false." (If set to "true," the password entered by a patron when logging into the public catalog will be cached in plain text in memcached.)
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OverDrive Discovery API Base URI and OverDrive Circulation API Base URI: By default, Evergreen uses OverDrive’s production API, so you should not need to set a value for these settings. If you want to use OverDrive’s integration environment, you will need to add the appropriate base URIs for the discovery and circulation APIs. See OverDrive’s developer documentation for details.
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OverDrive Granted Authorization Redirect URI: Evergreen does not currently support granted authorization with OverDrive, so this setting is not currently in use.
For more information, consult the OverDrive API documentation.
To enable OverDrive API integration, adjust the following public catalog settings
in config.tt2:
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ebook_api.enabled: set to "true". -
ebook_api.overdrive.enabled: set to "true". -
ebook_api.overdrive.base_uris: list of regular expressions matching OverDrive URLs found in the 856$9 field of older OverDrive MARC records. As of fall 2016, OverDrive’s URL format has changed, and the record identifier is now found in the 037$a field of their MARC records, with "OverDrive" in 037$b. Evergreen will check the 037 field for OverDrive record identifiers; if your system includes older-style OverDrive records with the record identifier embedded in the 856 URL, you need to specify URL patterns with this setting.
OneClickdigital API integration
Before enabling OneClickdigital API integration, you will need to request API access from OneClickdigital. OneClickdigital will provide the values to be used for the following new org unit settings:
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OneClickdigital Library ID: The identifier assigned to your library by OneClickdigital.
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OneClickdigital Basic Token: Your client authentication token, supplied by OneClickdigital when you request access to their API.
For more information, consult the OneClickdigital API documentation.
To enable OneClickdigital API integration, adjust the following public catalog
settings in config.tt2:
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ebook_api.enabled: set to "true". -
ebook_api.oneclickdigital.enabled: set to "true". -
ebook_api.oneclickdigital.base_uris: list of regular expressions matching OneClickdigital URLs found in the 859$9 field of your MARC records. Evergreen uses the patterns specified here to extract record identifiers for OneClickdigital titles.
Additional configuration
Evergreen communicates with third-party vendor APIs using the new
OpenILS::Utils::HTTPClient module. This module is configured using
settings in opensrf.xml. The default settings should work for most
environments by default, but you may need to specify a custom location
for the CA certificates installed on your server. You can also disable
SSL certificate verification on HTTPClient requests altogether, but
doing so is emphatically discouraged.