oaipmh-scythe: A Scythe for harvesting OAI-PMH repositories

Welcome to oaipmh-scythe, an updated and modernized version of the original sickle, now with additional features and ongoing maintenance.

CI
Package
Meta

oaipmh-scythe is a lightweight OAI-PMH client library written in Python. It has been designed for conveniently retrieving data from OAI interfaces the Pythonic way:

from oaipmh_scythe import Scythe

with Scythe("https://zenodo.org/oai2d") as scythe:
    records = scythe.list_records()
    next(records)
# <Record oai:zenodo.org:4574771>

Features

Easy harvesting of OAI-compliant interfaces
Support for all six OAI verbs
Convenient object representations of OAI items (records, headers, sets, ...)
Automatic de-serialization of Dublin Core-encoded metadata payloads to Python dictionaries
Option for ignoring deleted items

Requirements

Python >= 3.10

oaipmh-scythe is built with:

httpx2 for issuing HTTP requests
lxml for parsing XML responses

Installation

You can install oaipmh-scythe from PyPI using uv:

uv add oaipmh-scythe

or with pip:

python -m pip install oaipmh-scythe

Documentation

The documentation is made with Zensical and is hosted by GitHub Pages.

Similar Projects

There are a couple of similar projects available on PyPI and GitHub, e.g. via the topics oai-pmh and oai-pmh-client. Among them are these implementations in Python:

Project	Description	Last commit
sickle	`oaipmh-scythe` is a fork of `sickle`
pyoai	`sickle` was inspired by `pyoai`
oaipmh	`oaipmh` is a fork of `pyoai`
pyoaiharvester	oai-pmh harvester CLI
ddblabs-ometha	oai-pmh harvester with CLI and TUI
oai-harvest	uses `pyoai` internally
oai-pmh-harvester	uses `sickle` internally

There are also similar projects available in Java, PHP and Rust.

Acknowledgments

This is a fork of sickle which was originally written by Mathias Loesch.

License

oaipmh-scythe is distributed under the terms of the BSD license.

Download files

Download the file for your platform. If you're not sure which to choose, learn more about installing packages.

Source Distribution

oaipmh_scythe-0.15.1.tar.gz (19.5 kB view details)

Uploaded Aug 25, 2026 Source

Built Distribution

If you're not sure about the file name format, learn more about wheel file names.

The dropdown lists show the available interpreters, ABIs, and platforms. Enable javascript to be able to filter the list of wheel files.

oaipmh_scythe-0.15.1-py3-none-any.whl (21.8 kB view details)

Uploaded Aug 25, 2026 Python 3

File details

Details for the file oaipmh_scythe-0.15.1.tar.gz.

File metadata

Download URL: oaipmh_scythe-0.15.1.tar.gz
Upload date: Aug 25, 2026
Size: 19.5 kB
Tags: Source
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? Yes
Uploaded via: twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.13.14

File hashes

Hashes for oaipmh_scythe-0.15.1.tar.gz
Algorithm	Hash digest
SHA256	`40bfcbbe92ba24258e0bb6694ded55c4fa8e2adabc243d48e96b752687774a80`
MD5	`d386622109b3e89f863ef870494103d8`
BLAKE2b-256	`0d4d4e8e7118d6e9cd7af56f42d4430cd823a770f68206bf488a6b5532669fbb`

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for oaipmh_scythe-0.15.1.tar.gz:

Publisher: publish.yml on afuetterer/oaipmh-scythe

Attestations: Values shown here reflect the state when the release was signed and may no longer be current.

Statement:
- Statement type: https://in-toto.io/Statement/v1
- Predicate type: https://docs.pypi.org/attestations/publish/v1
- Subject name: oaipmh_scythe-0.15.1.tar.gz
- Subject digest: 40bfcbbe92ba24258e0bb6694ded55c4fa8e2adabc243d48e96b752687774a80
- Sigstore transparency entry: 2583170322
- Sigstore integration time: Aug 25, 2026
Source repository:
- Permalink: afuetterer/oaipmh-scythe@7fb964f5f1a8d7545c583f11c75726bd3f994837
- Branch / Tag: refs/tags/0.15.1
- Owner: https://github.com/afuetterer
- Access: public
Publication detail:
- Token Issuer: https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com
- Runner Environment: github-hosted
- Publication workflow: publish.yml@7fb964f5f1a8d7545c583f11c75726bd3f994837
- Trigger Event: release