Europeana

Overview

Europeana’s API searches 50+ million cultural heritage objects from European museums, libraries, and archives. Auth is a free API key (an invalid key returns 401, verified).

Quick Start

Search (replace YOUR_KEY):

curl "https://api.europeana.eu/record/v2/search.json?query=paris&wskey=YOUR_KEY&rows=3"

{
  "success": true,
  "totalResults": 123456,
  "items": [
    {
      "id": "/123/en/xyz",
      "title": ["Paris, vue du Louvre"],
      "country": ["France"],
      "dataProvider": ["Musée du Louvre"],
      "edmPreview": "https://..."
    }
  ]
}

Authentication

• Register at pro.europeana.eu → get a free API key (emailed).
• Send it as the wskey query parameter (invalid key → 401, verified).

Rate Limits & Notes

• Free tier: generous daily allowances (check the console — thousands of calls/day); paid tiers scale.
• The record API supports full-text search with faceting (qf=, f.THEME=...).
• Data comes with rights metadata (CC0/CC-BY etc.) — important for reuse.
• Also offers a linked-data SPARQL endpoint.

FAQ

Is Europeana free? Free tier with daily allowances; more is paid.

How do I get a key? Register at pro.europeana.eu — the key is emailed.

What can I search? 50M+ museum/library/archive objects with rights metadata.