“You could use the API!”: A Crash Course in Working with the Alma APIs using Postman

• Published in: The code4lib journal no. 54
• Main Author: Rebecca Hyams and Tamara Pilko
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Code4Lib 01.08.2022
• ISSN: 1940-5758; 1940-5758

While there are those within libraries that are able to take vendor APIs and use them to power applications and innovative workflows in their respective systems, there are those of us that may have heard of APIs but have only the slightest idea of how to actually make use of them. Often colleagues in various forums will mention that a task could be “just done with the API” but provide little information to take us from “this is what an API is” or “here’s the API documentation” to actually putting them to use. Looking for a way to automate tasks in Alma, the authors of this article both found themselves in such a position and then discovered Postman, an API platform with a user-friendly interface that simplifies sending API calls as well as using bulk and chained requests. This article gives a basic primer in how to set up Postman, how to use it to work with ExLibris’ Alma APIs, as well as the authors’ use cases in working with electronic inventory and course reserves.