# Europeana

A single search portal and set of APIs over records from European museums, libraries and archives, with CC0 metadata and per-item rights labels for the linked images, texts, audio and video.

- Category: Books and libraries · by Europeana Foundation
- Website: https://www.europeana.eu/
- Live data: no
- Checked on the official pages: 2026-10-23

## API

- Official API: yes, docs https://europeana.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/EF/pages/2385739812/Search+API+Documentation
- Key needed: yes
- Price: not stated; limits: Fair-use policy: a reasonable number of concurrent requests with waits between calls; Personal keys have lower limits than Project keys (one Personal key per account).
- Base URL: https://api.europeana.eu/record/v2/
- Formats: json, iiif, xml

Example request:

```
https://api.europeana.eu/record/v2/search.json?wskey=api2demo&query=vermeer&reusability=open&rows=12
```

## Data and license

- Download: https://europeana.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/EF/pages/2704146433 (xml)
- License: Metadata: CC0 1.0; media: per-item rights statements (https://www.europeana.eu/en/rights/terms-of-use); covers CC0 covers all metadata; images and media follow the rights badge on each item (filter with reusability=open)
- Commercial use with conditions
- Credit depends on the item
- Embedding with conditions
- Quote (key_levels): "Anyone can obtain a Personal API key. If you’re simply looking to experiment with the Europeana APIs and explore the content we make available, a Personal API key is a great way to start." (https://europeana.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/EF/pages/2462351393)
- Quote (production_use): "Personal API keys are for individual, non-production use and are limited to one per user. Project API keys may be used for production-level applications, services or projects operating at scale" (https://www.europeana.eu/en/rights/terms-of-use)
- Quote (limits): "Use of the API must be limited to a reasonable number of concurrent requests to an API, together with an appropriate wait period for completion of those calls before commencing further calls." (https://europeana.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/EF/pages/2704146433)
- Quote (download): "If your interest is to access metadata for a large amount of items, we recommend looking into our dataset download via FTP/HTTP or OAI-PMH offers ." (https://europeana.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/EF/pages/2704146433)
- Quote (license_metadata): "All Metadata available on europeana.eu are published free of restrictions, under the terms of the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication ." (https://www.europeana.eu/en/rights/terms-of-use)
- Quote (commercial): "The Digital Objects that are shown on Europeana.eu can only be used in accordance with the rights information displayed alongside them (the badges underneath the Digital Objects). They may also be used to the extent permitted by applicable copyright laws." (https://www.europeana.eu/en/rights/terms-of-use)
- Quote (attribution): "If you re-use data published by Europeana, we encourage you to follow the Usage Guidelines for Metadata and to provide attribution to the data sources whenever possible." (https://www.europeana.eu/en/rights/terms-of-use)
- Quote (embed): "the User shall assume that these Thumbnails and Content may only be used in accordance with the applicable copyright laws, unless the website of the data provider gives different permissions relating to the Thumbnails and/or Content, or uses such as embedding or linking are permitted." (https://www.europeana.eu/en/rights/terms-of-use)

## Rules for an agent

- Pass reusability=open to get only freely reusable items, and always read edm:rights on each record before showing or reusing media; the API supports CORS.
- Metadata is CC0, but each image or file follows its own rights statement (edm:rights); check it before reuse.
- Personal keys are for non-production use only; production apps need a Project key, and keys must not be exposed in public code or UIs.
- Keep concurrent requests low and use the bulk dataset downloads for large harvests.

Human page: https://agentgid.com/resources/europeana/
Source: AgentGid (agentgid.com). Facts are quoted from the site's own pages; check the license page before you ship.