Europeana Collections

Europeana Collections API Skill

Search 50M+ cultural heritage items from 4,000+ European institutions.

Critical: Things Claude Won't Know Without This Skill

API key is required — use api2demo for testing

Every request needs a wskey parameter. The demo key api2demo works for development/testing. For production use, register for a free key at https://www.europeana.eu/en/account/api-keys.

https://api.europeana.eu/record/v2/search.json?query=vermeer&wskey=api2demo

Response fields use Dublin Core / EDM naming

Fields are prefixed with dc (Dublin Core) or edm (Europeana Data Model):

• title — array of title strings
• dcCreator — creator names
• dcDescription — descriptions
• year — year(s) as strings
• country — country of holding institution
• dataProvider — institution name (e.g., "Rijksmuseum")
• rights — license URL
• edmPreview — thumbnail URL
• edmIsShownAt — link to item on provider's site
• type — IMAGE, TEXT, SOUND, VIDEO, 3D

Filter for open-access with reusability=open

?query=vermeer&reusability=open

Returns only items with open licenses (Public Domain, CC0, CC BY, CC BY-SA).

Multilingual titles use LangAware suffix

dcTitleLangAware contains titles keyed by language code:

{"en": ["The Milkmaid"], "nl": ["Het melkmeisje"]}

Key Search Parameters

Query Filters (qf=)

Multiple filters: repeat qf= parameter.

Record Lookup

https://api.europeana.eu/record/v2/{RECORD_ID}.json?wskey=api2demo

Record IDs look like /15502/GG_9128 (from the id field in search results).

Response Structure

{
  "success": true,
  "totalResults": 1573,
  "items": [
    {
      "id": "/90402/SK_A_2344",
      "title": ["The Milkmaid", "Het melkmeisje"],
      "dcCreator": ["Johannes Vermeer"],
      "year": ["1660"],
      "country": ["Netherlands"],
      "dataProvider": ["Rijksmuseum"],
      "type": "IMAGE",
      "rights": ["http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"],
      "edmPreview": ["https://api.europeana.eu/thumbnail/v2/..."],
      "edmIsShownAt": ["http://hdl.handle.net/..."],
      "edmIsShownBy": ["https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/..."],
      "score": 20.9
    }
  ]
}

Python Script

from scripts.europeana_api import EuropeanaAPI
eu = EuropeanaAPI()  # uses api2demo key by default

# Basic search
results = eu.search("vermeer")

# Filtered search
results = eu.search("medieval manuscript", type="TEXT", country="France", reusability="open")

# Get single record
record = eu.get_record("/15502/GG_9128")

# Summarize
for r in results:
    print(eu.summarize(r))

API Etiquette

• Free API key required (register at europeana.eu)
• Demo key api2demo for testing only
• No published rate limit for free keys; project keys available for higher throughput
• Include descriptive User-Agent header

Related Skills

• wikidata-search: Cross-reference Europeana items with Wikidata entities
• harvard-library-catalog: Compare European holdings with Harvard's collection
• loc-catalog: Cross-reference with Library of Congress digitized collections

Resources

• references/api_reference.md — Complete query filter and response field reference
• scripts/europeana_api.py — Python client with search, record lookup, and open-access filtering