[ckan-discuss] New open source catalog and list of APIs on Data.gov

Thu May 23 18:55:43 BST 2013

Josh, Many thanks for the explanation-application. Yes, the CKAN API is running very slow and yes, I got nearly immediate response from your mirror sites. Now what do I do with 25 MB and 8 KB Jason files? I want something I can readily work with in Spotfire like CSV, Excel, etc.

So if I am the public/data scientist, I cannot really use:

http://catalog.data.gov <http://catalog.data.gov/>  where I would have to look at and use 3683 pages

and 

https://catalog.data.gov/api/3/action/package_list where it takes so long and returns a format that I cannot import into Spotfire

If I had the entire catalog I could expand my Spotfire application:

https://silverspotfire.tibco.com/us/library#/users/bniemann/Public?OpenGovernmentData-Spotfire

to search and readily download from the catalog, a specific data set of interest and import it into Spotfire and visualize it like I have done for the Federal Data Center Consolidation Data Center Closings 2010-2013.xlsx

Irina, This answers your suggestion and question:

You can download the files directly from search result listing by clicking the format icons. Or from dataset pages. If you're looking to download datasets on bulk, you can do this through the CKAN API, in blocks of 100 for example. API calls detailed here: http://docs.ckan.org/en/ckan-2.0/api.html

What are you looking to do?

Brand

From: Josh Tauberer [mailto:tauberer at govtrack.us] 
Sent: Thursday, May 23, 2013 11:31 AM
To: Brand Niemann
Cc: 'Holm, Jeanne M (1760)'; 'eGov W3C'
Subject: Re: New open source catalog and list of APIs on Data.gov

Brand,

Since the new site is based on CKAN, you can read the CKAN API documentation yourself to figure out how to download the data catalog:

    http://docs.ckan.org/en/ckan-2.0/api.html

The API is running really slow right now (probably all of us checking out the new site), so I'd suggest *not* hitting the API link below right now, but I've mirrored it so you can see the output quickly:

https://catalog.data.gov/api/3/action/package_list
  => Produces a JSON list of entries in the catalog
  => Here's a static mirror: http://razor.occams.info/files/catalog_data_gov_api_action_package_list.json

The package_search API function returns complete metadata rather than just a list of package names. It requires an HTTP POST, so here's an example of that:

    curl -d '{"rows":1, "start": 0}' https://catalog.data.gov/api/3/action/package_search
    => static mirror: http://razor.occams.info/files/catalog_data_gov_api_action_package_search.json

- Josh Tauberer (@JoshData)

http://razor.occams.info

On 05/23/2013 10:34 AM, Brand Niemann wrote:

Thanks, Jeanne. Please send me the link to download the entire and new data catalog.

I am getting ready for: On Thursday, May 23rd at 2:00PM ET, Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel will host a conference call to discuss the 1-yr Anniversary of the  <http://whitehouse.gov/digitalgov> Digital Government Strategy and ongoing Administration efforts to drive innovation through open data and other initiatives.

Brand

From: Holm, Jeanne M (1760) [mailto:jeanne.m.holm at jpl.nasa.gov] 
Sent: Thursday, May 23, 2013 10:10 AM
To: Brand Niemann; 'eGov W3C'
Subject: Re: New open source catalog and list of APIs on Data.gov

Brand--

As John pointed out, the entire and new catalog (as of this morning) is available at https://catalog.data.gov/dataset <http://catalog.data.gov>  

The catalog at https://explore.data.gov/Other/Data-gov-Catalog/pyv4-fkgv is our previous catalog of "raw" data that is not part of the larger catalog above.

The number differs from our earlier number of datasets:  The total number of datasets reflects datasets plus data series. A data series may contain a large number of additional products or files of the same type. The previous Data.gov catalog counted the individual datasets and not just the series and therefore had a higher total number of datasets noted. The change in number does not reflect a change in the size of the catalog, but rather a different structure of data products in the new catalog.

Hope this helps to address any confusion.

--Jeanne

**********************************************************
Jeanne Holm
Evangelist, Data.gov
U.S. General Services Administration

Cell: (818) 434-5037
Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn: JeanneHolm
**********************************************************

  _____  

From: Brand Niemann <bniemann at cox.net>
To: "'Holm, Jeanne M (1760)'" <jeanne.m.holm at jpl.nasa.gov>; 'eGov W3C' <public-egov-ig at w3.org> 
Sent: Thursday, May 23, 2013 8:10 AM
Subject: RE: New open source catalog and list of APIs on Data.gov

Jeanne, Thank you. I heard Doug Nebert announce this yesterday at the UCGIS 2013 Symposium:

http://ucgis2.org/event-item/preliminary-program

When I look for the 73,651 data sets, I find only 7,808 at:  <https://explore.data.gov/Other/Data-gov-Catalog/pyv4-fkgv> https://explore.data.gov/Other/Data-gov-Catalog/pyv4-fkgv

So where are the other 65,843?

My audit for reproducible results is at: http://semanticommunity.info/An_Open_Data_Policy

Thanks, Brand

Dr. Brand Niemann

Director and Senior Data Scientist

Semantic Community

http://semanticommunity.info <http://semanticommunity.info/> 

http://gov.aol.com/bloggers/brand-niemann/

703-268-9314

From: Holm, Jeanne M (1760) [mailto:jeanne.m.holm at jpl.nasa.gov] 
Sent: Thursday, May 23, 2013 8:42 AM
To: eGov W3C
Subject: New open source catalog and list of APIs on Data.gov

Hi all--

I invite you to visit Data.gov to see the new catalog for browsing U.S. open data: http://catalog.data.gov <http://catalog.data.gov/>  We have combined raw and geospatial data from many sources across the U.S. and presented it through an open source tool, CKAN. 

In connection with the U.S. Digital Strategy we have also created a new list of government APIs: http://www.data.gov/developers/page/developer-resources 

Find out more at: http://www.data.gov/blog/datagov-launches-new-catalog-and-apis  

--Jeanne Holm

**********************************************************
Jeanne Holm
Evangelist, Data.gov
U.S. General Services Administration

Cell: (818) 434-5037
Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn: JeanneHolm
**********************************************************

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/ckan-discuss/attachments/20130523/e174fa4d/attachment-0001.htm>