by Alex Boyd (George Washington University)

In response to a growing number of library patron requests and overall interest in bibliometric analysis – or a methodology for quantifying citations and connections in scholarly journals, books, and researcher outputs – the Libraries and Academic Innovation team at George Washington University (GWU) is in the process of developing an open source software solution for querying bibliometric data sourced from OpenAlex (openalex.org/).
By utilizing a GraphQL API architecture in our implementation, as opposed to a REST API architecture, we are able to offer a single API endpoint that allows users to create customizable queries and retrieve the exact information needed for their research or analysis, without the need for multiple API requests or the overfetching of unnecessary data.

This talk will provide an overview of the current development status of Bookworm, technical considerations and challenges for those interested in implementing a similar system, and a demonstration of various types of queries made possible by implementing a GraphQL API.