is there restful API for gospel resources?

[Thomasvaladez]

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.

[davesudweeks]

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

[eblood66]

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.

[Thomasvaladez]

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.

[russellhltn]

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/

[Thomasvaladez]

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

[Imovable101]

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.

[russellhltn]

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.

[kingc12]

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

[russellhltn]

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.