In 2010 we developed version 1.0 of our WordPress plugins and application programming interface (API). We're now ready to make this public. We're excited to launch version 2.0 of the WordPress plugins and API. You can read all of the technical detail on the new eHive Developers website.
Phase One – Collection records able to be harvested
In May 2012, we added support for data harvesting. eHive records can be harvested (copied) by regional or national cultural aggregation websites, such as DigitalNZ in New Zealand, Culture Grid in the United Kingdom, and Trove in Australia. Sharing your records with other large cultural heritage sites allows you to reach a much larger audience.
The data harvesting support was the first feature released during this year's API development. By default this is disabled on your account, so the data harvesting only happens if you enable it (it's one of the Data Access & Privacy settings for your eHive account). Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting is the technical standard used to support this.
Phase Two – WordPress plugins and API
Our eHive programming interface provides ways of accessing your content from other websites or software. This includes websites you develop, third party websites you wish to contribute to, mobile apps and custom applications.
The release of the API means that users can create their own websites with their eHive content displayed with their own branding and their own museum, gallery or heritage site information. It is a way to create a branded front end to an eHive account, and to fence that account’s records off from the rest of the published content on eHive.com. Our WordPress plugins provide a very easy to do this within a WordPress site.
This means that users can have an eHive account to catalogue and manage their collections, their own branded museum website and the simplest way possible to communicate between the two.
Version 1.0 of the API has been in use at selected sites, for example the WordPress website of Fairfield Halls in the UK – http://fairfieldat50.ehive.com/. The version 2.0 beta release is planned for the National Digital Forum (NDF) in Wellington, New Zealand on the 20th-21st November 2012.
New help website: developers.ehive.com
We're also launching a detailed new website for developers wishing to work with eHive data through the programming interfaces. developers.ehive.com is the new home for all the technical information you need to use the data harvesting, WordPress plugins or REST API.
If you are attending, please do come along and say hello to the Vernon Systems team.
