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Library Website Tools

The UMD Libraries provides APIs to access information about physical spaces and hours.

Libtools REST API

The Libtools API provides access to information about Libraries’ spaces and hours. It is a RESTful API that returns JSON data.

Endpoint: https://api.www.lib.umd.edu/api/libtools/

Find the documentation here with examples: https://api.www.lib.umd.edu/api/libtools/docs

Example: website-libtools-hours.py

website-libtools-hours.py
#!/usr/bin/env python3

import urllib.request
import json

# Retrieve McKeldin hours from libtools search

BASE = 'https://api.www.lib.umd.edu/api/libtools/'
ENDPOINT = 'mckeldin/hours/today'

hours_url = BASE + ENDPOINT

# Get search results as parsed JSON
with urllib.request.urlopen(hours_url) as request:
    response = json.loads(request.read())

    status = response['status']

    print('----')
    print(f'McKeldin Hours: {status}')