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I'm using the pybliometrics package to query the Scopus API in Python. Specifically, I'm using the AuthorRetrieval class to grab data about the author using an EID (name, affiliation, bibliometric info, etc.) and am also grabbing information about the co-authors.

To do so, I use the .get_coauthors() method on the AuthorRetrieval object, which provides me with named tuples of the co-authors -- works well!

I have been hitting a quota limit, however, after about 400 AuthorRetrieval queries. I am connected to our subscribing institution's VPN, and use a registered API key, so I should be able to run 5000 searches in a week before hitting the quota limit.

Does the .get_coauthors() method run an entirely separate API query, on top of the one already done by the AuthorRetrieval query? How would this affect our quota limit?

Pybliometrics version: 2.6.3

Roger Reka
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The .get_coauthors() method retrieves information on the coauthors from separate calls against a part of the Author Retrieval API. It does so in batches of 25 results. That is, for say 90 coauthors, there are four queries, and the key is used four times.

Unfortunately though, that information isn't cached; so each time one uses that method keys are used again.

BTW: It seems you're using only one key. You can have up to 10 keys and put all them in your config.ini, like described here.

MERose
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  • Thank you for the clarification on how this method works! We'll keep this in mind when we estimate the number of queries that our processes will run. I didn't know that we could use multiple API keys; we'll look into this. – Roger Reka Oct 05 '20 at 17:43