An Introduction to the Goodreads APIs
What is an API anyway?
Application Programming Interface (API)
APIs come in many shapes and sizes, as offered by numerous sources in the programming world. In general, the abbreviation refers to a means for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other, typically for obtaining a service or utilizing offered functionality from outside the source. In our case, we're specifically interested in web APIs -- which allow access for web developers, often for free, to tap into a provider's offered data, libraries and services. While developers should always first familiarize themselves with a provider's terms and conditions of use, these APIs can deliver a a wide array of functionality and a wealth of information for your end site user.
How They're Used
Many of the weather reports you see on websites get their data using APIs provided by weather-gathering services. Through maps, search engines, account access and more, you are using APIs all the time as web consumer, including media such as TokApi from TikTok or Deezer's music library, search and mapping via Google, sports statistics, language translation and more. In this tutorial, we'll look at how to tie into one to make a search engine that returns book information.
The Goodreads API
The Goodreads API allows access to their entire database of book and author information, as well as the social network of its users. This can be a means of reading and submitting reviews (there are over 10 million reviews across the 700,000 titles and growing), and can also allow members connect to their own accounts from an external site.