wentorai/research-plugins/base-academic-search

Claude Code and agent skill by wentorai/research-plugins

Trust tier 2
  • community
LLM review pending
Source check pending

Checking that the SKILL.md file is still in the repository.

Search 400M+ open access documents via the BASE search engine API

Install

npx vskill@latest install wentorai/research-plugins/base-academic-search

SKILL.md

BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine) API

Overview

BASE is one of the world's largest search engines for academic open access web resources. Operated by Bielefeld University Library, it indexes 400M+ documents from 11,000+ content providers including institutional repositories, preprint servers, and digital libraries. Unlike Google Scholar, BASE provides structured metadata, license information, and full-text links. The API is free with registration.

API Endpoints

Base URL
https://api.base-search.net/cgi-bin/BaseHttpSearchInterface.fcgi
Search
bash
# Basic keyword search (JSON response)
curl "https://api.base-search.net/cgi-bin/BaseHttpSearchInterface.fcgi?\
func=PerformSearch&query=climate+change+adaptation&format=json&hits=20"
# Search with field filters
curl "https://api.base-search.net/cgi-bin/BaseHttpSearchInterface.fcgi?\
func=PerformSearch&query=dctitle:transformer+AND+dcsubject:NLP&format=json"
# Filter by document type and year
curl "https://api.base-search.net/cgi-bin/BaseHttpSearchInterface.fcgi?\
func=PerformSearch&query=deep+learning&dctypenorm=121&dcyear:2024&format=json"
# Open access only
curl "https://api.base-search.net/cgi-bin/BaseHttpSearchInterface.fcgi?\
func=PerformSearch&query=CRISPR&dcrights:open&format=json"
Search Fields
FieldDescriptionExample
dctitleTitledctitle:attention+mechanism
dccreatorAuthordccreator:vaswani
dcsubjectSubject/keywordsdcsubject:machine+learning
dcdescriptionAbstractdcdescription:neural+network
dcyearPublication yeardcyear:2024
dctypeDocument type textdctype:article
dctypenormNormalized type code121 (journal article)
dcrightsAccess rightsdcrights:open
dclangLanguagedclang:eng
dclinkSource URLdclink:arxiv.org
dcoaOpen access statusdcoa:1 (OA), dcoa:2 (restricted)
dcproviderContent providerdcprovider:arxiv.org
Document Type Codes
CodeType
121Journal article
122Book / monograph
14Conference paper
15Thesis / dissertation
17Report
18Preprint
Query Parameters
ParameterDescriptionDefault
funcMust be PerformSearchRequired
querySearch query with optional field prefixesRequired
formatResponse format: json or xmlxml
hitsResults per page (max 125)10
offsetPagination offset0
sortbySort: dcyear desc, score descrelevance

Response Structure

json
{
"response": {
"numFound": 45200,
"start": 0,
"docs": [
{
"dctitle": "Attention Is All You Need",
"dccreator": ["Ashish Vaswani", "Noam Shazeer"],
"dcyear": "2017",
"dcsubject": ["machine learning", "attention mechanism"],
"dcdescription": "The dominant sequence transduction models...",
"dcidentifier": "https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762",
"dcsource": "arXiv.org",
"dcprovider": "arxiv.org",
"dcdocid": "abc123xyz",
"dcoa": 1,
"dctypenorm": ["18"],
"dclang": ["eng"]
}
]
}
}

Python Usage

python
import requests
BASE_URL = "https://api.base-search.net/cgi-bin/BaseHttpSearchInterface.fcgi"
def search_base(query: str, hits: int = 20,
doc_type: int = None, oa_only: bool = False) -> list:
"""Search BASE for academic open access documents."""
q = query
if doc_type:
q += f" AND dctypenorm:{doc_type}"
if oa_only:
q += " AND dcoa:1"
params = {
"func": "PerformSearch",
"query": q,
"format": "json",
"hits": hits,
"sortby": "dcyear desc",
}
resp = requests.get(BASE_URL, params=params)
resp.raise_for_status()
data = resp.json()
results = []
for doc in data.get("response", {}).get("docs", []):
results.append({
"title": doc.get("dctitle"),
"authors": doc.get("dccreator", []),
"year": doc.get("dcyear"),
"source": doc.get("dcsource"),
"url": doc.get("dcidentifier"),
"abstract": (doc.get("dcdescription") or "")[:300],
"open_access": doc.get("dcoa") == 1,
"type": doc.get("dctypenorm", []),
})
return results
def search_dissertations(topic: str, lang: str = "eng") -> list:
"""Find dissertations and theses on a topic."""
query = f"{topic} AND dctypenorm:15 AND dclang:{lang}"
return search_base(query, hits=50)
def search_by_provider(query: str, provider: str) -> list:
"""Search within a specific content provider."""
full_query = f"{query} AND dcprovider:{provider}"
return search_base(full_query)
# Example: find recent open access ML papers
papers = search_base("transformer self-attention", hits=10, oa_only=True)
for p in papers:
oa = "OA" if p["open_access"] else "restricted"
print(f"[{p['year']}] {p['title']} ({oa}) — {p['source']}")
# Example: find dissertations on climate modeling
theses = search_dissertations("climate modeling ocean")
for t in theses:
print(f"[{t['year']}] {t['title']} — {', '.join(t['authors'][:2])}")

BASE vs Other Search Engines

FeatureBASEGoogle ScholarOpenAlex
Records400M+Unknown250M+
Open access focusYesNoYes
Structured APIYesNo official APIYes
License metadataYesNoPartial
Dissertation coverageExcellentGoodLimited
Repository-level filteringYesNoNo

References

Security

  • Security scanPassed, 100 of 100Pattern checks on the skill's files.
  • Model reviewNot runA model review is scheduled for the next rescan.

Quality evaluation

  • Task evaluationNot runNo evaluation yet. Run one in Skill Studio.

Source

Popularity

Repository stars
241
Repository forks
40
7-day trend score
27

Stars and forks are for the whole GitHub repository, not this skill alone. Not refreshed yet.

Works with

Any agent vskill installs to: 56 targets in all. These 39 have a page on this site.

  • Claude Code
  • Cursor
  • GitHub Copilot
  • Windsurf
  • Codex
  • Gemini CLI
  • Cline
  • Amp
  • Roo Code
  • Goose
  • Continue
  • Kilo Code
  • Junie
  • Trae
  • OpenHands
  • Qwen Code
  • AI Agent
  • Tabnine Chat
  • Sourcegraph Cody
  • Amazon Q
  • Firebase Genkit
  • Sweep
  • Devin
  • Phind
  • Mentat
  • Claude Desktop
  • Aider
  • GPT Pilot
  • Plandex
  • bolt.new
  • v0
  • Replit Agent
  • Anse
  • TypingMind
  • BetterChatGPT
  • LibreChat
  • Warp AI
  • Pieces
  • Fig AI
Embed badge
vskill VERIFIED badge
[![vskill VERIFIED](https://verified-skill.com/api/v1/skills/wentorai/research-plugins/base-academic-search/badge)](https://verified-skill.com/skills/wentorai/research-plugins/base-academic-search)

Something wrong with this skill or its page? Tell us.