Search

Sends one search to several sources at once. The answer is a single JSON array of references, grouped by source in the order listed under db. Each source has 30 seconds to answer; a source that fails or is too slow contributes nothing and the others are still returned. Nothing found is an empty array.

Parameter	Description
search	simple (free text) or advanced (by field). Required.
text	Simple search: any text, a DOI (10.3897/BDJ.1.e995, doi:…, https://doi.org/…) or a PubMed Central ID (PMC3234428). Identifiers are looked up exactly.
author, year, title, origin	Advanced search; any one of them is enough. year is a four-digit year, origin the journal or publisher (published_in is accepted as another name for it).
db	Optional and repeatable: the sources to search. Simple search: crossref, openalex, datacite, pubmed, mendeley. Advanced search: the same plus bhlarticles and bhlbooks. Default: all of them. /sources returns these lists as JSON.
limit	Optional: results per source, 1 to 100. Default 5.
status	Optional: with status=1 each source's results are followed by {"source", "db", "type": "status", "count", "total", "ms", "error"}. count results are in the answer out of the total the source reports for the search; error says why a source gave nothing.
more	Optional: with more=1 each source that found something adds {"source", "db", "type": "more_simple" | "more_advanced", "more": 30}, a suggested limit for a follow-up search of that source alone.

Examples:

/find?search=simple&db=crossref&db=openalex&limit=3&text=Smith /find?search=advanced&author=Penev&year=2010&origin=ZooKeys&status=1

BHL needs at least an author or a title; BHL books matches authors by last name only. The ZooBank source (db=gnub) is not searched by default because it does not currently answer requests from our servers.

A reference

Every reference in a search answer is a JSON object. Most fields are optional: a source that has no value for a field leaves it out or gives an empty string.

Field	Description
source	The source that returned it, e.g. CrossRef
title	Title; may contain simple HTML markup such as <i>
authors, firstauthor	[[given, family], …] and the first of them
year, publicationDate	Year of publication, and the full date where known
publishedIn, publisher	Journal or book, and publisher
volume, issue, spage, epage	Volume, issue, first and last page
doi, href	DOI without prefix, and a link to the work
type, id	The source's own type and identifier(s)
abstract, infoUrl, related, score	Where the source has them: abstract, the source's page for the work, related identifiers (DataCite), relevance score
openAccess, citedBy	OpenAlex: link to free full text (or true), and the number of citing works
isParsed, fullCitation	true for every search result; the citation as one string where the source has it

Formatting

Formats one reference in a citation style. The answer is an HTML fragment (<div class="csl-entry">…</div>).

Parameter	Description
style	A style file name from /format/list, for example apa.csl (the .csl may be left out)
ref	A reference as returned by the search, as JSON. The fields used are authors, title, year, publishedIn, volume, issue, spage, epage and doi; send only these to keep the address short.

/format?style=apa.csl&ref={"authors":[["Lyubomir","Penev"]],"title":"Semantic tagging",…}

All styles as {"<file>.csl": "<title>"}.

Import

Reads the references from an EndNote XML or MODS file sent as multipart/form-data (one file, field name 0, up to 20 MB). The answer is a JSON array of references in the form above; a file that is neither EndNote XML nor MODS gives [1]. The file is not kept.

Errors

Status	When
400	A search without search, without text or fields, or with a db that does not exist for that kind of search; a ref that is not a JSON object; an upload without a file. Search errors come as {"error": "…"}.
404	A style that does not exist
500	A style that cannot be applied to the reference