Using the API
Summary
The Faceted Application of Subject Terminology (FAST) Authority File is a project of he OCLC Office of Research. It created a new subject authority system based on the Library of Congress Subject Headings, but with simplified syntax and usage rules. The Web service provides a way to retrieve authority records in a variety of formats.
Access methods
The API is called upon using the following base service URL:
http://id.worldcat.org/fast
Frequency of Data Update
Our target is to update FAST at least twice a year.
Content Negotiation
FAST is capable of content negotiation for requested URLs. Therefore different Accept/Header retrieves content in different formats. Below is a table of the Accept/Headers recognized by FAST, the format of the corresponding response and the corresponding URL for accessing the data without using Accept/Headers
| accept header | response format | url |
|---|---|---|
*/* application/xhtml+xml text/html | HTML | / |
application/rdf+xml application/rdf+html | RDF XML | /rdf.xml /rdf.html |
application/marc21+xml application/marc21+html | MARC21 XML | /marc21.xml /marc21.html |
Authentication Requirements
There are no authentication requirements to access this API. Please be sure to consult the license (ODC-By) when using data from the API.
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