[Biopython-dev] Fwd: [Utilities-announce] NCBI Revised E-utility Usage Policy

Peter peter at maubp.freeserve.co.uk
Wed Mar 24 10:08:26 EDT 2010


Hi,

This is probably of interest to all the Bio* projects offering access
to the NCBI
Entrez utilities. See forwarded message below.

I *think* the new guidelines basically say that the email & tool parameters are
optional BUT if your IP address ever gets banned for excessive use you then
have to register an email & tool combination.

Regarding the email address, the NCBI say to use the email of the developer
(not the end user). However, they do not distinguish between the developers
of a library (like us), and the developers of an application or script using a
library (who may also be the end user).

Currently we (Biopython) and I think BioPerl ask developers using our libraries
to populate the email address themselves. I *think* this is still the
right action.

Peter

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:  <utilities-announce at ncbi.nlm.nih.gov>
Date: Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 1:53 PM
Subject: [Utilities-announce] NCBI Revised E-utility Usage Policy
To: NLM/NCBI List utilities-announce <utilities-announce at ncbi.nlm.nih.gov>


New E-utility documentation now on the NCBI Bookshelf

The Entrez Programming Utilities (E-Utilities) Help documentation has
been added to the NCBI Bookshelf, and so is now fully integrated with
the Entrez search and retrieval system as a part of the Bookshelf
database. This help document has been divided into chapters for better
organization and includes several new sample Perl scripts. At present
this book covers the standard URL interface for the E-utilties;
material about the SOAP interface will be added soon and is still
available at the same URL:
http://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query/static/eutils_help.html.



Revised E-utility usage policy

In December, 2009 NCBI announced a change to the usage policy for the
E-utilities that would require all requests to contain non-null values
for both the &email and &tool parameters. After several consultations
with our users and developers, we have decided to revise this policy
change, and the revised policy is described in detail at the following
link:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bookshelf/br.fcgi?book=helpeutils&part=chapter2#chapter2.Usage_Guidelines_and_Requiremen

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns about this
policy change.



Thank you,

The E-Utilities Team

NIH/NLM/NCBI

eutilities at ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.



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