columbia-clio

name	columbia-clio
description	Search Columbia University Libraries' CLIO catalog for books, journals, manuscripts, and other holdings via its Blacklight JSON API. Use this skill whenever the user wants to look up items in Columbia's library, check availability of books at Columbia, search by title/author/subject with faceted filtering by format/language/location, or retrieve detailed catalog records including call numbers and holdings data. Triggers when referencing Columbia University collections or Ivy League library holdings.
version	1.0.0

Columbia CLIO Catalog Skill

Search Columbia University Libraries' catalog of books, journals, manuscripts, and more.

Critical: Things Claude Won't Know Without This Skill

CLIO has an undocumented but fully functional JSON API

CLIO runs on Blacklight (Solr-based). Append .json to catalog URLs for JSON responses. No API key required.

Search:  https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog.json?q=hamlet&per_page=10
Record:  https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/{id}.json

Field-specific search uses search_field parameter

All fields: ?q=hamlet
Title only: ?q=hamlet&search_field=title
Author:     ?q=shakespeare&search_field=author

Facets use array bracket syntax

?f[format][]=Book
?f[language_facet][]=Chinese&f[format][]=Book

Available facets: format, language_facet, location_facet, subject_topic_facet, subject_geo_facet, subject_era_facet, subject_form_facet, pub_date_sort.

This is undocumented — be a good citizen

No rate limits are documented, but this is an unofficial API. Keep requests to 1/second max. The official bulk data is at https://lito.cul.columbia.edu/extracts/ColumbiaLibraryCatalog/full/ (MARCXML, CC0).

Key Search Parameters

Param	Description	Example
q	Search query	q=dream+of+the+red+chamber
search_field	Limit to field: title, author, or all	search_field=title
per_page	Results per page (default ~10)	per_page=25
page	Page number	page=2
sort	Sort: pub_date_sort+desc, pub_date_sort+asc	sort=pub_date_sort+desc
f[facet][]	Filter by facet value	f[format][]=Book

Response Structure

{
  "response": {
    "docs": [
      {
        "id": "12345678",
        "title_display": "Hamlet",
        "author_display": "Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616",
        "format": ["Book"],
        "pub_year_display": ["2003"],
        "pub_name_display": ["Cambridge University Press"],
        "language_facet": ["English"],
        "isbn_display": ["9780521532525"],
        "location_call_number_id_display": ["Butler Stacks PR2807 .A2 T48 2003 "]
      }
    ],
    "facets": [ ... ],
    "pages": {
      "current_page": 1,
      "total_pages": 5330,
      "total_count": 10659,
      "next_page": 2
    }
  }
}

Key Document Fields

Field	Description
id	Catalog record ID
title_display	Title
author_display	Primary author
author_facet	All authors (array)
format	Format (Book, Online, Music, etc.)
pub_year_display	Publication year(s)
pub_name_display	Publisher
pub_place_display	Place of publication
language_facet	Language(s)
isbn_display	ISBN(s)
oclc_display	OCLC number(s)
lccn_display	LCCN(s)
subject_topic_facet	Subject terms
location_call_number_id_display	Location + call number
physical_description_display	Physical description

Python Script

from scripts.clio_api import ColumbiaClioAPI
clio = ColumbiaClioAPI()

# Search
results = clio.search("hamlet", search_field="title", per_page=10)

# With facets
results = clio.search("chinese poetry", facets={"format": "Book", "language_facet": "Chinese"})

# Get single record
record = clio.get_record("12345678")

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

Related Skills

• harvard-library-catalog: Compare holdings across Harvard and Columbia
• hathitrust-catalog: Use ISBNs/OCLCs from CLIO to check HathiTrust for digital versions
• wikidata-search: Link OCLC numbers to Wikidata entities

Resources

• references/api_reference.md — Complete field and facet reference
• scripts/clio_api.py — Python client with search, record lookup, and faceted filtering