Search API
For the search API, I would encourage the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ to consider the SRW/U information retrieval standard, as a way of making their service as interoperable as possible.
From the SRW site:
SRW/U is a low-barrier solution to information retrieval.The SRW/U protocol uses easily available technologies -- XML, SOAP, URI -- to perform tasks traditionally done using proprietary solutions; it can be carried either via SOAP (SRW) or as a URL (SRU).
SRW/U allows users to search remote databases. A user sends a searchRetrieve request which includes a query, and the server responds with a searchRetrieve response indicating the number of records that matched the query, possibly along with some of those records formatted according to an XML schema that the user requested.
The query is represented in CQL, the "Common Query Language", designed for human readable, human writeable, intuitive queries. It supports very simple queries -- for example an unqualified single term (e.g. "cat") -- but maintains the expressiveness of more complex languages, to represent arbitrarily complex queries.
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