API's & Data feeds

API's & Software Libraries

Resources for understanding API's

• Beginner’s guide for journalists who want to understand API documentation (Poynter Institute)
• Four Reasons Your News Org Should Use APIs (Poynter Institute)
• Open APIs in Action: Your Website and Your Content (Poynter News University)

API's provided by News Organizations

• The Guardian - API access to a wide range of content from the UK's Guardian News Organization, including articles and some government data. According the Guardian's website, the enables "selecting and collecting Guardian content through a database of articles and multimedia published daily. There are over 1M articles available published as far back as 1999."
• New York Times - API access to various NY Times data streams including: Article Search, Best Sellers, Campaign Finance, comments by NYTimes.com, U.S. Congressional vote data, NY City political districts based on a pair of coordinates, hand-picked events in New York City and the surrounding area, links and metadata for the blog posts and articles that are most frequently e-mailed, shared and viewed by NYTimes.com readers, Movie Reviews, member and committee information for the New York State Senate and Assembly, real estate, and up-to-the-minute stream of NY Times articles.
• USA Today - API access to USA Today Content including: Articles, Best-Selling Books, Book Reviews, Breaking News, Census Analysis, Movie Reviews, Music Reviews, Snapshots, & Sports Salaries.
• ESPN APIs - Currently the only API that is publicly available is "headlines." API's for teams, standings, athletes and other topics are currently in "beta" and available only to partners.

Feedzilla

• Feedzilla API Overview - Newsfeed API. Get wild, and customize your newsfeed from top to bottom.
• Feedzilla Newsfeed Widget Builder - Want to get started faster? Start off by building a newsfeed using the Newsfeed Builder Wizard. Grab the HTML code for the widget, and take a peek inside. You'll already see the API in action, and you'll be halfway there to building your totally customized feed.

Google

• Google Chart Tools: Image Charts: Dynamic Icons This page describes how to create a variety of callouts, bubbles, pins, and other graphics that can be requested by URL, or added as markers on top of other charts (Google Chart API).
• Google Maps Image APIs - The Google Static Maps API lets you embed a Google Maps image on your web page without requiring JavaScript or any dynamic page loading. The Google Static Map service creates your map based on URL parameters sent through a standard HTTP request and returns the map as an image you can display on your web page.
• Google Maps JavaScript API V3 - A Solution for Maps Applications for both the Desktop and Mobile Devices.

Twitter

• Twitter Developers - Home Page for Twitter Developers Documentation including the API's.
• Twitter Widgets - Widgets let you display Twitter updates on your website or social network page.

Other

• jQuery Library - jQuery is a fast and concise JavaScript Library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development.
• jQuery UI - jQuery UI provides abstractions for low-level interaction and animation, advanced effects and high-level, themeable widgets, built on top of the jQuery JavaScript Library, that you can use to build highly interactive web applications.
• GovHub's Census Shape Converter - The Census Shape Converter, (or CSC, for lack of a better name,) helps decipher the vast U.S. government repository of map shapes from the 2010 census into .kml files, a more universal format. Currently, CSC does these things: (1) Grabs an archive from the U.S. Census FTP archive. (2)Converts your choice of States, Counties, or Localities to .kml format (3) Separates the different maps into a coherent file structure.
• Meebo Bar API - The Meebo Bar API is a set of tools provided by Meebo to allow you to easily customize the sharing behavior on the bar and to quickly develop custom action/widget/menu buttons.
• OpenLayers - OpenLayers is a pure JavaScript library for displaying map data in most modern web browsers, with no server-side dependencies.

Data Feeds and Information Resources

Note that in some of these cases, the data is not currently available online, though it is accessible in some format.

National

• US Census Datasets - The U.S. Census counts every resident in the United States. More information about the data, along with supporting content, can be found here. The census records and data specific to individual respondents are not available to the public until 72 years after a given census was taken, but aggregate statistical data derived from the census are released as soon as they are available. Current 2010 data releases are available here.

• Federal Education Budget Project - Comparative analysis of funding, student demographics and achievement data for local school districts.

• BTS National Transportation Atlas Database - The National Transportation Atlas Database is a set of nationwide geographic databases of transportation facilities, transportation networks, and associated infrastructure. These datasets include spatial information for transportation modal networks and intermodal terminals, as well as the related attribute information for these features. Metadata documentation, as prescribed by the Federal Geographic Data Committee, is also provided for each database.

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) RSS Feeds - From this page you can subscribe to CDC or other US Government RSS feeds or view their contents directly on this page without having to use an aggregator.

• U.S. Geological Survey: Social Media - Twitter, RSS and Data Feeds, Podcasts, Facebook resources from the USGS.

• National Weather Service (NWS) RSS Library - The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NWS RSS Library. The National Weather Service is always seeking to improve the availability and quality of NWS products and services based on user feedback. Comments regarding the use of RSS to disseminate NWS operational data/products should be emailed to National Weather Service at w-nws.webmaster@noaa.gov.

• XML National Weather Feed - Provides access to observed current weather conditions for about 1,800 locations across the United States and US Territories in RSS and XML format.

State

• New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) RSS Feeds - The Press Release RSS Feed contains press releases issued by the Department of Transportation, including news about upcoming public meetings and hearings, announcements about new project openings, and Media Advisories. The Regional Roadwork Forecast RSS feeds provide information related to planned roadwork events and their expected impact to travel with a given region. The feeds are provided by the regional Public Information Officers in advance of the actual events, whenever possible. For those events which are related to a dedicated, larger project they offer a link directly to that project's web site.

• NYS GIS Clearinghouse - The New York State Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Clearinghouse, operated by the New York State Office of Cyber Security, was established to disseminate information about New York's Statewide GIS Coordination Program and to provide access to the New York State GIS Data and Metadata Repository.

• Open States API Project - A Sunlight Foundation project to gather legislative data directly from the states and make it available in a common format through a RESTful API and regular bulk downloads. Currently NY State is in the "experimental" phase.

• NYSED:IRS:Violent and Disruptive Incidents Report - Raw XLS files from NYS on Education VADIR data.

• New York State Education Violent and Disruptive Incidents Report API Access - Simple set of API's for accessing NYS Education VADIR data.
  • API Documentation - Documentation for NYS Ed VADIR data API's

County/City

• Rochester City School District - FEBP Information for the Rochester City Schools.
  • You can view other local school district information using a name search on the above site.

• RocDocs - The Democrat & Chronicle's collection of data, maps and reports. RocDocs includes: a Real Estate Database, School administrator salaries, On The Move, Restaurant inspections, Rochester Patents among other info.

• RGRTA Schedule Info - Data feed for the Rochester/Genessee Regional Transit Authority Bus Schedule. This is what's driving the Google Transit page/

• Monroe County News RSS Feed - This RSS feed includes all of the stories that appear on our homepage as they are published.

• Monroe County GIS Data - Note that this data is not currently available online, but the page provides information for how to get a DVD of it.

• Monroe County Clerks Office - Land Records dating backs to 1/1/1973, Court Filings from 2/1/1989, & DBA/Corporate Filings from 1/1/1820(!). Requires you to create a free account to access the data.

• Monroe Country 911 Calls - XML Feed of all 911 Calls for Monroe County.

• Monroe County 911 Safety Feed Collator - Collator of 911 XML feed data.

• City of Rochester Crime Map - This is posted via Crime Reports.com. Note that an alternate crime map is available at spot crime.

• Monroe County Jail Roster - This is updated *usually* every day with the current population within Monroe County Jail. (PDF Form)

Other Information

• Broadcast frequencies for Monroe County Radio Systems