pmc-downloader 0.1.0

PubMed Central (PMC) Open Access Articles Downloader

PMCDownloader

PMCDownloader is a Python library built to streamline the process of searching and downloading open-access articles from PubMed Central (PMC). Whether you need to collect articles for research, manage references, or automate data extraction, this tool simplifies the process, offering a reliable way to retrieve metadata and PDFs of relevant articles.

Purpose

PMCDownloader allows researchers and developers to efficiently:

• Search for scientific articles in PubMed Central (PMC) using customizable search terms.
• Download full-text PDFs of the articles directly to your local storage.
• Retrieve detailed metadata for each article, facilitating better organization and management of references.
• Automate the downloading process with robust error handling, retries, and rate-limiting.

This tool is especially beneficial for:

• Automating research tasks like bulk downloading academic papers.
• Ensuring reproducibility of research by retrieving articles directly from a trusted, open-access repository.
• Saving time by eliminating manual article search and download steps.

Features

• Custom Search: Allows you to search PMC for articles based on specific search terms (e.g., disease, topic, author).
• Metadata Retrieval: Fetch article metadata, including titles, publication details, and more.
• PDF Downloads: Download the full-text PDFs of articles directly from PMC.
• Directory Customization: Specify the output directory for storing the downloaded PDFs.
• Rate Limiting & Robust Error Handling: Handles retries, timeouts, and rate-limiting to ensure stable operation even under high load.
• Search Filters: Filter search results by article type, publication status, and other criteria to refine your results.
• Max Results Control: Control the number of search results returned, making it easier to manage large datasets.

Installation

To install the library via pip, run the following command:

pip install pmc_downloader

Example Usage

from pmc_downloader import PMCDownloader

downloader = PMCDownloader(
    email="[e-mail]",
    api_key="your_api_key",
    search_terms="machine learning cancer",
    output_dir="./articles",
    max_results=50
)

pmc_ids = downloader.search_articles()
downloader.download_articles(pmc_ids, download_count=10)

Example Search Query

search_query = '''
(
  "student-teacher interaction"[Title/Abstract] OR
  "educational outcomes"[Title/Abstract]
)
AND ("open access"[filter])
NOT ("online learning" OR "AI")
'''

Parameters

Mandatory Parameters:

• email: Registered email for NCBI API
• api_key: Your NCBI API key
• search_terms: PubMed search query
• output_dir: Directory where downloaded files will be saved

Optional Parameters:

• max_results (default: 1000): Maximum search results
• request_delay (default: 1.0): Wait time between API requests (seconds)
• timeout (default: 15.0): Download process timeout period
• max_retries (default: 3): Maximum number of retries for failed requests