The fallacy of the multi-API culture

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to revisit a decade after its conception the Representational State Transfer (REST) architectural style and analyzes its relevance to address current challenges from the Library and Information Science (LIS) discipline. Design/methodology/approach -Conceptual aspects of REST are reviewed and a generic architecture to support REST is presented. The relevance of the architecture is demonstrated with the help of a case study based on the collection registration database of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. Findings -The authors argue that the "resources and representations" model of REST is a sustainable way for the management of web resources in a context of constant technological evolutions. Practical implications -When making information resources available on the web, a resource-oriented publishing model can avoid the costs associated with the creation of multiple interfaces. Originality/value -This paper re-examines the conceptual merits of REST and translates the architecture into actionable recommendations for institutions that publish resources.

Dynamic system models and their simulation in the Semantic Web

“…From a practical perspective, REST can be roughly summarized as follows (see [46] for a detailed explanation): a service exposes a set of conceptual resources. These resources are typically identified and located by URLs.…”