europeana-collections

name	europeana-collections
description	Search Europeana's 50M+ cultural heritage items from 4,000+ European museums, galleries, libraries, and archives. Use this skill whenever the user wants to find European art, manuscripts, photographs, maps, 3D objects, audio, or video from institutions like the Rijksmuseum, British Library, Louvre, or Gallica. Also triggers when searching for open-access European cultural heritage, IIIF resources, or cross-referencing European collections with other library catalogs.
version	1.0.0

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

Param	Description	Example
query	Search query (Lucene syntax)	query=vermeer
qf	Query filter (field:value)	qf=TYPE:IMAGE
reusability	License filter: open, restricted, permission	reusability=open
media	Has media (true/false)	media=true
rows	Results per page (max 100)	rows=20
start	Result offset (1-based)	start=21
sort	Sort field	sort=score+desc
wskey	API key (required)	wskey=api2demo
profile	Response detail: minimal, standard, rich	profile=rich

Query Filters (qf=)

Filter	Values
TYPE	IMAGE, TEXT, SOUND, VIDEO, 3D
COUNTRY	Country name (e.g., Netherlands)
LANGUAGE	ISO code (e.g., en, nl, de)
PROVIDER	Provider name
DATA_PROVIDER	Institution name
RIGHTS	License URL
what	Subject/keyword
where	Place
when	Time period

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