So you want to create a new application using DigitalNZ content? Here are a few tips to get you going.
Create a DigitalNZ account, log in and select "my API key" from your right hand drop-down menu. The key is a long string of jumbled letters and numbers (hash) that is unique to you.
When you make a call to the API you'll append it to the URL like this (this call won't actually work because it's a fake key):
http://api.digitalnz.org/v3/records.json?api_key=YOUR_API_KEY&text=kiwi
At DigitalNZ we collect metadata about New Zealand's digital content. Metadata is information that describes a particular item, like its title, the name of its creator, or the date it was produced. Understanding what we've got will help you figure out what you can do.
Via the API you can submit a query to our search and it will return information about the various New Zealand-related images, audio, video, magazines, documents, and web pages that we aggregate from our content partners.
The quality and availability of the metadata varies considerably, but in general you can get access to this kind of information:
You can get a feel for the info in the search and can find further details about the metadata in our:
Please also check out the Developer API Terms of Use which explain how you are allowed to use the metadata.
Here's a helpful intro to data mashups.
Our library of code samples provides inspiration and guidance from other programmers on consuming the API.
Okay, so this is where the real work begins. We can't teach you how to program here, sorry, but we'll point you to our blog post about building a website on the DigitalNZ API.
Contact us to let us know what you've been working on. We'd love to tell everyone!