Overview of ScienceDirect Journals API
Last updated on April 30, 2026
The Fetch API allows users to search for documents and images (if entitled to) based on their DOI.
Typical use case – a search is conducted on another source of data e.g. Embase. The user downloads a list of DOIs associated with their search results and uses these DOIs to retrieve the full text of the articles they are entitled to.
For customers entitled after October 2023:
Quick Start Guide(Opens in a new tab or window)
Journals Data XML(Opens in a new tab or window)
SFTP set up guide(Opens in a new tab or window)
Release Notes(Opens in a new tab or window)
Getting Started Guide - Datasets Journals API(Opens in a new tab or window)
- Articles are retrieved by searching DOI (if queries contain invalid DOIs then they are rejected, with an error message indicating why)
- The articles are delivered in the XOCS XML format
- The maximum number of articles per request is 1000 – to retrieve articles users will be sent a url, where they can download a zip file containing XMLs for the requested documents.
- A user will only be able to search within the collections that they are subscribed to
- Requests are processed asynchronously, and users will need to download their results within 1hr of the download url being created.
- If a user is entitled to images they can request to search for XML or images or both.
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