is there restful API for gospel resources?

Hey guys,
Is there any way to query lds.org for content through an API. I am looking to build a scripture study tool and I wondered if any work had been done on restful APIs. Any resources, ideas, help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

I think you will find your answer in this thread.
https://tech.lds.org/forum/viewtopic.ph ... pi#p178724

That discussion may not be entirely relevant because the OP there specifically wanted to access membership information which is sensitive. Access to scriptures and other material that shows up in Gospel Library would not be sensitive. However, the church has not provided an API to access that information. No reason has been provided. At one point there was some indication that they would do so but later the information about it was deleted without explanation.

Personally, my guess, based on the obvious difficulties in keeping the features of the Gospel Library apps and lds.org in sync, I expect they decided they did not want to commit resources to maintaining another content outlet.

Thanks for the replies guys. I am not looking to access any sensitive data, like membership information. I am more interested in getting access to the standard works, conference talks, ensign articles, and such. It seems as if there is no resource for this. So I guess my follow up question to that would be, does anyone have large libraries of content they would be willing to share so that I could build a public API.

Thomasvaladez wrote:does anyone have large libraries of content they would be willing to share so that I could build a public API.

I'd think that would run into copyright restrictions. You can't distribute someone else's content without their permission.

You can find more information at https://permissions.lds.org/

Thank you! I wasn't aware of https://permissions.lds.org/. Request submitted.

Reading through the referenced material on https://permissions.lds.org/ general non-commercial use of content that's already openly accessible on the church website is within legal bounds (from what I understand). So, for example, in the absence of an API, one could do web scraping and achieve something similar and still be within legal bounds.

Correct me if I'm wrong I'm by no means a lawyer haha.

Imovable101 wrote:Reading through the referenced material on https://permissions.lds.org/ general non-commercial use of content that's already openly accessible on the church website is within legal bounds (from what I understand).

If you "publish" it by hosting it on a public website, that may not be considered "personal" use. If that's the desired usage, I'd seek permission.

There is a Request Form that goes though a few questions. It appears to me that if you put it on the web, it says that you'll need permission.

Isn't screen scraping usually discouraged by website owners, even if technically legal, due to server load? Or is scraping lds.org fine?

kingc12 wrote:Isn't screen scraping usually discouraged by website owners, even if technically legal, due to server load? Or is scraping lds.org fine?

I don't know as anyone here can answer that. The bigger issue is what you're going to do with the information.

I was just going to scrape the standard works and study helps for my algorithmic personal study.

I'll probably just go to the permissions and ask about it.

Sorry this answer is a bit delayed, but there appears to be a RESTful API for Gospel Library content that is fairly old: http://tech.lds.org/wiki/Gospel_Library ... eb_Service

Have fun!

That's interesting. I didn't realize there was a published API. Note that sbradshaw added a redirect away from the page, so if the API still works, I think the church is making no commitment to maintaining it.

That page was from when the community was involved with the development of the Gospel Library apps. The documentation there hasn't been updated in years and I'm sure that the content format has changed since then. In addition, even when it was valid there was another page which indicated the API could only be used with permission (and as far as I know that permission was never given to anything other than official church sponsored applications).

So I very much doubt it works and even if it does, I don't think anyone has permission to use it.

kingc12 wrote:Isn't screen scraping usually discouraged by website owners, even if technically legal, due to server load? Or is scraping lds.org fine?

most websites have a "robots.txt" file that details which information you can and can't scrape from them. Although only Amazon and Google have good ways to stop scripts, and website owners couldn't stop you. it is good programming etiquette to add a piece of code that will read the robots.txt and prevent the script from accessing those regions of the website.
Some websites will allow specific bots, and some will block specific bots.

you can find it at "lds.org/robots.txt"

they disallow these regions of the website for all bots/scripts
User-agent: *
Disallow: /placestovisit/location/drive
Disallow: /institutes/calendar
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /services/platform
Disallow: /tools/feedback
Disallow: /languages

A few years later, this is still a top thread for any query related to APIs for Gospel Resources (scriptures, come follow me etc)

Is there any updated resources or details?