Consuming the Data

馃彔 Home 路 Overview 路 Data Structure 路 Entity Matching 路 Consuming the Data 路 Automation

Who is this page for?

Direct Downloads & Non-Developer Tools

All data in this repository is completely public and can be downloaded directly without needing an API key or account.

Resource Direct Download Link What It Contains
Latest Digest data/latest.json The newest weekly post, editorial, and parsed stories.
All Posts Index data/posts_index.json Catalog of every weekly post published since 2010.
2024 Stories data/stories/2024.json All parsed stories published during 2024.
2023 Stories data/stories/2023.json All parsed stories published during 2023.
UK Council Lookup data/lookups/uk_authorities.json List of UK councils, ONS/GSS codes, and nicknames.
UK Libraries Lookup data/lookups/libraries.json 4,200+ UK public library branches with map coordinates.

How to Open JSON Without Coding

  1. In Google Sheets:
    • Install the free API Connector or JSON Get add-on, paste the Direct Download URL above, and it will expand the news items into rows and columns.
  2. In Microsoft Excel:
    • Go to the Data tab -> Get Data -> From File -> From JSON.
    • Select your downloaded .json file to convert stories into an Excel table.
  3. In Your Web Browser:
    • Click any of the links above to view the raw data. In modern browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Edge), JSON is displayed in a collapsible tree that you can search with Ctrl+F.

Developer Integration

The datasets are served from GitHub鈥檚 raw CDN and are accessible via standard HTTP GET requests from web applications, mobile apps, or backend servers.

In JavaScript (Fetch API)

// Load the latest weekly digest and print local news stories
async function loadLatestNews() {
  const url = "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LibrariesHacked/public-libraries-news/main/data/latest.json";
  const response = await fetch(url);
  const data = await response.json();

  console.log(`Latest edition: ${data.latest_post.title}`);
  
  data.stories.forEach(story => {
    const council = story.resolution?.library_service?.name || story.entity_raw;
    const branches = story.resolution?.libraries_mentioned?.map(b => b.name).join(", ");
    
    console.log(`[${story.section}] ${council} ${branches ? '(' + branches + ')' : ''}: ${story.text}`);
  });
}

loadLatestNews();

In Python (pandas / requests)

import pandas as pd
import requests

# Load all 2024 stories into a pandas DataFrame
url = "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LibrariesHacked/public-libraries-news/main/data/stories/2024.json"
stories = requests.get(url).json()

df = pd.DataFrame(stories)
print(f"Total stories loaded: {len(df)}")
print(df[["post_date", "section", "entity_raw", "text"]].head())

# Filter for stories tagged with cuts or closures
cuts_and_closures = df[df["classification"].apply(
    lambda c: any(cat in c.get("categories", []) for cat in ["cuts_and_finance", "closures_and_threats"])
)]
print(f"Total cut and closure stories in 2024: {len(cuts_and_closures)}")

In cURL / Command Line

# Get the title and story count of the latest post
curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LibrariesHacked/public-libraries-news/main/data/latest.json | jq '{title: .latest_post.title, count: .latest_post.stories_count}'

# Search for stories mentioning Birmingham in 2024
curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LibrariesHacked/public-libraries-news/main/data/stories/2024.json | jq '.[] | select(.resolution.library_service.name == "Birmingham City Council") | {date: .post_date, text: .text}'

Attribution Requirement

All news text in this archive is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.

When using this data in your website, map, dashboard, or research report, please include attribution:

News stories sourced from Public Libraries News (https://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/), curated by Ian Anstice in partnership with The Library Campaign.