eHUB Development Guide

Here you'll find a simple reference guide that will help you use eHUB APIs and understand how they work.

Common Terms

Authroization header: An HTTP header used to send authentication credentials when using HTTP authentication.
Content Provider: A third party provider of e-media content.
Content Provider Format ID: The ID of a format at a specific Content Provider.
Content Provider Loan: The loan at a specific Content Provider.
Content Provider Name: The name of the Content Provider defined by the eHUB. Contact you Axiell sales representative for currently supported Content Provider names.
Content Provider Record ID: The ID of a record at a specific Content Provider.
eHUB Consumer: Represents a consumer of the eHUB with access to one or several Content Providers.
eHUB Consumer ID: A value passed as part of the Authorization header (see the Security page). Think of it as a complex username generated for you.
eHUB Consumer Secret key: A value used when signing the requests (see the Security page). Think of it as a complex password generated for you.
eHUB Loan ID: A reference to the loan in the eHUB.
Error Cause: The cause of an error (see the Error Handling section below).
Error Cause Argument: Argument to an error. Can be used in combination of the error cause to build user friendly error messages on the client side (see the Error Handling section below).
LMS Loan ID: A reference to the loan in the underlying Library Management System (LMS).
LMS Record ID: The ID of the record in the underlying Library Management System (LMS).
Pending Loan: Contains information necessary when creating a loan.
Ready Loan: Contains metadata about a created loan and the actual content of the loan.

Best Practices

Below you'll find some points that will help you use the eHUB APIs effectively.

It is recommended to always get the available formats before a loan is created, since the available formats for a specific record may vary. See the getRecord for more information.
It is not necessary to provide the user credentials when getting the formats, however it is still recommended to do so when it opens up the possibility to check whether the end-user might be able to checkout a record or not.
Even though language is optional in all requests, it is still recommended to provide the ISO 639 alpha-2 or alpha-3 language code of the desired language the response should be in.

Documents

The following documents provide a brief overview of the eHUB APIs and the design and security principles used in their creation. Please read through these documents before starting the integration.