Zenodo Scraper — Research Records, Datasets & Software Metadata

$0.005 per record · Extract research outputs, datasets, software, and publications from Zenodo — CERN's open research repository with 4M+ records, permanent DOIs, and full community metadata. No API key needed for public records.

Built for research intelligence, dataset discovery, open-science dashboards, DOI enrichment pipelines, and RAG/LLM corpora on academic research and data.

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What You Get

• Advanced search — Zenodo's full query syntax (title/creators/keywords/DOI filters)
• Record details — full metadata by record ID or DOI (description, files, authors, license)
• Community browsing — list records inside a specific Zenodo community
• Recent uploads — latest research outputs (great for monitoring dashboards)
• Resource type filter — publication / dataset / software / poster / presentation / image / video
• DOI-ready — every record ships with a permanent 10.5281/zenodo.* DOI
• Structured JSON — stable fields, ready for downstream pipelines
• CC-licensed data — reusable under open licenses

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4 Use Cases (ready-to-run JSON inputs)

1. Discover fresh datasets on a topic

{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "climate change temperature",
  "resourceType": "dataset",
  "maxResults": 50,
  "sort": "mostrecent"
}

Top 50 most-recent datasets about climate change — seed data for a research dashboard or a reading list.

2. DOI enrichment for a reference list

{
  "mode": "record_details",
  "recordIds": ["10.5281/zenodo.1234567", "10.5281/zenodo.7654321"]
}

Full metadata (title, authors, abstract, files, license) for specific DOIs. Use to enrich a bibliography CSV or citation manager export.

3. Monitor a research community

{
  "mode": "community",
  "communityId": "covid-19",
  "resourceType": "publication",
  "maxResults": 100,
  "sort": "mostrecent"
}

Latest 100 publications in the Zenodo COVID-19 community — perfect for weekly digest emails or Slack alerts.

4. Daily "what's new on Zenodo" feed

{
  "mode": "recent",
  "resourceType": "software",
  "maxResults": 25
}

25 newest software releases published to Zenodo — ideal for open-source release trackers.

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Input Schema

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	enum	search	search / record_details / community / recent
searchQuery	string	—	Query (supports title: / creators.name: / keywords:)
resourceType	enum	""	publication / dataset / software / poster / …
recordIds	string[]	[]	Numeric IDs or 10.5281/zenodo.NNN DOIs (record_details)
communityId	string	—	Zenodo community slug (community mode)
maxResults	integer	50	Max records per run
sort	enum	bestmatch	bestmatch / mostrecent / mostviewed

Output (sample — record_details)

{
  "id": 1234567,
  "doi": "10.5281/zenodo.1234567",
  "title": "Global temperature anomalies 1880–2024",
  "resourceType": "dataset",
  "publicationDate": "2024-11-18",
  "creators": [
    {"name": "Smith, Jane", "affiliation": "MIT", "orcid": "0000-0002-1825-0097"}
  ],
  "description": "Monthly global temperature anomalies compiled from GISS, HadCRUT5 and Berkeley Earth...",
  "keywords": ["climate", "temperature", "anomaly", "reanalysis"],
  "license": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "files": [
    {"filename": "temps.csv", "size": 524288, "checksum": "md5:abcdef...", "downloadUrl": "https://zenodo.org/records/1234567/files/temps.csv"}
  ],
  "stats": {"views": 8420, "downloads": 2310, "uniqueDownloads": 1945},
  "zenodoUrl": "https://zenodo.org/records/1234567"
}

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Pricing & Performance

• Pay-per-event: $0.005 per Zenodo record
• Typical cost: $0.05 for 10 records, $0.50 for 100, $5 for 1,000
• Speed: ~10–15 records/second (rate-limit-safe against Zenodo API)
• Free Apify tier: $5/month credit = ~1,000 records/month

Zenodo itself is free and open — you pay only for structured extraction, DOI enrichment, and delivery into your pipelines.

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Integrations

• Zapier / Make / n8n — new record in a community → Airtable / Slack / Notion
• LangChain / LlamaIndex — RAG over abstracts, descriptions, and metadata
• Vector DBs (Pinecone / Weaviate / Qdrant) — embed titles/abstracts for semantic "similar research"
• Neo4j / Graphiti — researcher → record → community → keyword graph
• Citation managers (Zotero / Mendeley) — DOI resolver + metadata fetcher
• Elasticsearch / Algolia / Meilisearch — index research outputs for search UI
• Python SDK

  from apify_client import ApifyClient
  client = ApifyClient("<APIFY_TOKEN>")
  run = client.actor("Helpermara/zenodo-scraper").call(
      run_input={"mode": "search", "searchQuery": "large language model", "resourceType": "dataset", "maxResults": 30}
  )
  for rec in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
      print(rec["doi"], rec["title"])
  

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FAQ

Do I need a Zenodo API token? No, public records are accessible without authentication. Zenodo applies generous rate limits for anonymous traffic.

What about private / restricted records? This actor only reads public content. Restricted records require a Zenodo personal token (not covered here).

Which DOI format should I use? Either full DOI (10.5281/zenodo.1234567) or just the numeric record ID — both work in recordIds.

How do I find a community slug? Visit https://zenodo.org/communities/ and look at the URL — slugs like covid-19, eosc, openaire are the communityId.

Advanced search syntax? Zenodo supports Lucene-style queries: title:"neural network" AND creators.name:"Hinton". Pass as-is into searchQuery.

Can I get file contents? No — the actor returns file metadata + download URLs. Fetch files yourself using the returned downloadUrl.

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Keywords

zenodo scraper, zenodo api, research data, research datasets, open science, doi metadata, cern zenodo, academic datasets, research outputs, fair data, open access, research software, scholarly communication, openaire, research discovery, dataset catalog, digital repository, preprint, citation enrichment, doi resolver

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Companions (cross-promo)

• crossref-scraper — DOI metadata
• semantic-scholar-scraper — academic papers
• arxiv-scraper — preprints
• orcid-scraper — researcher profiles

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Changelog

• 2026-04-24 — Extended README with use cases, integrations, and FAQ
• 2026-03 — Initial release: 4 modes (search / record_details / community / recent)