rbhl tutorial


for v0.8.0


rbhl is an R interface to the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Installation

install.packages("rbhl")

Or development version from GitHub

install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("ropensci/rbhl")

library("rbhl")

Usage

Output formats

You can output various formats using the as parameter, setting to ‘json’, ‘xml’, ‘list’, or ‘table’. Note that not all options are available in all functions due to varying returned data objects.

Raw output, in xml format

bhl_authorsearch(name='dimmock', as='xml')

json format

bhl_authorsearch(name='dimmock', as='json')
#> [1] "{\"Status\":\"ok\",\"ErrorMessage\":null,\"Result\":[{\"CreatorID\":189035,\"Name\":\"Dimmock, Anna Katherina\",\"Role\":null,\"Numeration\":\"\",\"Unit\":\"\",\"Title\":\"\",\"Location\":\"\",\"FullerForm\":\"\",\"Relationship\":null,\"TitleOfWork\":null,\"Dates\":\"\",\"CreatorUrl\":\"https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/creator/189035\"},{\"CreatorID\":59023,\"Name\":\"Dimmock, G\",\"Role\":null,\"Numeration\":\"\",\"Unit\":\"\",\"Title\":\"\",\"Location\":\"\",\"FullerForm\":\"\",\"Relationship\":null,\"TitleOfWork\":null,\"Dates\":\"\",\"CreatorUrl\":\"https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/creator/59023\"},{\"CreatorID\":189042,\"Name\":\"Dimmock, Geo \",\"Role\":null,\"Numeration\":\"\",\"Unit\":\"\",\"Title\":\"\",\"Location\":\"\",\"FullerForm\":\"\",\"Relationship\":null,\"TitleOfWork\":null,\"Dates\":\"\",\"CreatorUrl\":\"https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/creator/189042\"},{\"CreatorID\":189021,\"Name\":\"Dimmock, George\",\"Role\":null,\"Numeration\":\"\",\"Unit\":\"\",\"Title\":\"\",\"Location\":\"\",\"FullerForm\":\"\",\"Relationship\":null,\"TitleOfWork\":null,\"Dates\":\"\",\"CreatorUrl\":\"https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/creator/189021\"},{\"CreatorID\":1970,\"Name\":\"Dimmock, George,\",\"Role\":null,\"Numeration\":\"\",\"Unit\":\"\",\"Title\":\"\",\"Location\":\"\",\"FullerForm\":\"\",\"Relationship\":null,\"TitleOfWork\":null,\"Dates\":\"1852-\",\"CreatorUrl\":\"https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/creator/1970\"},{\"CreatorID\":8126,\"Name\":\"Dimmock, George,\",\"Role\":null,\"Numeration\":\"\",\"Unit\":\"\",\"Title\":\"\",\"Location\":\"\",\"FullerForm\":\"\",\"Relationship\":null,\"TitleOfWork\":null,\"Dates\":\"1852-1930\",\"CreatorUrl\":\"https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/creator/8126\"}]}"

Or get a list

bhl_authorsearch(name='dimmock', as='list')
#> $Status
#> [1] "ok"
#> 
#> $ErrorMessage
#> NULL
#> 
#> $Result
#> $Result[[1]]
#> $Result[[1]]$CreatorID
#> [1] 189035
...

The default option in most functions is to parse to a data.frame

bhl_authorsearch(name='dimmock')
#> # A tibble: 6 x 12
#>   CreatorID                    Name  Role Numeration  Unit Title Location
#> *     <int>                   <chr> <lgl>      <chr> <chr> <chr>    <chr>
#> 1    189035 Dimmock, Anna Katherina    NA                                
#> 2     59023              Dimmock, G    NA                                
#> 3    189042           Dimmock, Geo     NA                                
#> 4    189021         Dimmock, George    NA                                
#> 5      1970        Dimmock, George,    NA                                
#> 6      8126        Dimmock, George,    NA                                
#> # ... with 5 more variables: FullerForm <chr>, Relationship <lgl>,
#> #   TitleOfWork <lgl>, Dates <chr>, CreatorUrl <chr>

Some examples of function calls

Get title metadata

bhl_gettitlemetadata(1726, items = TRUE)
#> $Status
#> [1] "ok"
#> 
#> $ErrorMessage
#> NULL
#> 
#> $Result
#> $Result$TitleID
#> [1] 1726
#> 
...

bhl_booksearch(title='Selborne', lname='White', volume=2, edition='new', year=1825, collectionid=4, language='eng')
#> # A tibble: 1 x 23
#>   TitleID BibliographicLevel MaterialType
#> *   <int>              <chr>        <chr>
#> 1   32868                                
#> # ... with 20 more variables: FullTitle <chr>, ShortTitle <lgl>,
#> #   SortTitle <lgl>, PartNumber <chr>, PartName <chr>, CallNumber <lgl>,
#> #   Edition <chr>, PublisherPlace <chr>, PublisherName <chr>,
#> #   PublicationDate <chr>, PublicationFrequency <lgl>, Doi <lgl>,
#> #   TitleUrl <chr>, Authors <list>, Subjects <lgl>, Identifiers <lgl>,
#> #   Collections <lgl>, Variants <lgl>, Items <list>, Notes <lgl>

Search titles

bhl_titlesearchsimple('husbandry')
#> # A tibble: 155 x 23
#>    TitleID BibliographicLevel       MaterialType
#>  *   <int>              <chr>              <chr>
#>  1   25997     Monograph/Item Published material
#>  2   44403     Monograph/Item Published material
#>  3   27062     Monograph/Item Published material
#>  4   41956     Monograph/Item Published material
#>  5   44462     Monograph/Item Published material
#>  6   28081     Monograph/Item Published material
#>  7   56265     Monograph/Item Published material
#>  8   58205     Monograph/Item Published material
#>  9   51946     Monograph/Item Published material
#> 10   55665     Monograph/Item Published material
#> # ... with 145 more rows, and 20 more variables: FullTitle <chr>,
#> #   ShortTitle <chr>, SortTitle <chr>, PartNumber <chr>, PartName <chr>,
#> #   CallNumber <lgl>, Edition <chr>, PublisherPlace <chr>,
#> #   PublisherName <chr>, PublicationDate <chr>,
#> #   PublicationFrequency <chr>, Doi <lgl>, TitleUrl <lgl>, Authors <lgl>,
#> #   Subjects <lgl>, Identifiers <lgl>, Collections <lgl>, Variants <lgl>,
#> #   Items <lgl>, Notes <lgl>

Get languages

This function gets a list of languages in which materials in BHL have been written.

bhl_getlanguages()
#> # A tibble: 70 x 2
#>    LanguageCode         LanguageName
#>  *        <chr>                <chr>
#>  1          AFR            Afrikaans
#>  2          ARA               Arabic
#>  3          ARC              Aramaic
#>  4          MAP Austronesian (Other)
#>  5          BUL            Bulgarian
#>  6          BUR              Burmese
#>  7          CAR                Carib
#>  8          CAT              Catalan
#>  9          CEL       Celtic (Other)
#> 10          CHI              Chinese
#> # ... with 60 more rows

Citing

To cite rbhl in publications use:


Scott Chamberlain (2017). rbhl: Interface to the ‘Biodiversity’ ‘Heritage’ Library. R package version 0.8.0. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=rbhl

License and bugs

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