Brown University

Brown University is a private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, ranked #57 in the QS World University Rankings 2025. Its public developer and API footprint is centered on the Brown University Library, which operates the Brown Digital Repository (BDR) with a documented public REST/search API and a IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework) image and presentation service. Brown also runs an InCommon-federated Shibboleth/SAML single sign-on identity service and maintains an active "Brown University Library" GitHub organization with hundreds of open-source repositories. Most institutional systems (SIS, course catalog, internal services) are gated behind Brown authentication and are not publicly documented APIs.

Brown University publishes 3 APIs on the APIs.io network. Tagged areas include Education, Higher Education, University, Research, and Library.

The Brown University catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context.

Brown University’s developer surface includes GitHub presence, authentication, and 8 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub

24.3/100 emerging ▬ flat Agent 12/100 agent aware Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-08-20 · rubric v0.12.0

AccessFree

3 APIs

EducationHigher EducationUniversityResearchLibraryDigital RepositoryIIIFUnited States

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-08-20 · rubric v0.12.0

Composite quality — 24.3/100 · emerging

Contract Quality 2.4 / 21

Developer Ergonomics 3.6 / 17

Access Clarity 4.9 / 17

Operational Transparency 2.9 / 11

Contract Governance 0.0 / 10

Discoverability 6.3 / 9

Regulatory Posture 4.7 / 15

Agent readiness — 12/100 · agent aware

Machine-Readable Contract 0 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 0 / 10

Documented Reversibility 0 / 6

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 0 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Education & Research regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.

The six quality facets above are damped to 85 points between them, because the conditional facet above carries the other 15. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 85% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/brown: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

APIs 3

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Brown Rate Limits

1 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Get Started 1

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

DeveloperPortal

DeveloperPortal

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHub

GitHub

Access & Security 2

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Authentication

Authentication

Operate 1

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

RateLimits

RateLimits

Commercial 2

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Plans

Plans

FinOps

FinOps

Company 2

The organization behind the API

Website

Website

LinkedIn

Other 1

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Review

Review

Source (apis.yml)

aid: brown
name: Brown University
description: 'Brown University is a private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, ranked #57 in the
  QS World University Rankings 2025. Its public developer and API footprint is centered on the Brown University Library, which
  operates the Brown Digital Repository (BDR) with a documented public REST/search API and a IIIF (International Image Interoperability
  Framework) image and presentation service. Brown also runs an InCommon-federated Shibboleth/SAML single sign-on identity
  service and maintains an active "Brown University Library" GitHub organization with hundreds of open-source repositories.
  Most institutional systems (SIS, course catalog, internal services) are gated behind Brown authentication and are not publicly
  documented APIs.'
type: Index
accessModel:
  pricing: free
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Free
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
position: Consumer
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/brown.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/brown/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
tags:
- Education
- Higher Education
- University
- Research
- Library
- Digital Repository
- IIIF
- United States
created: '2026-06-03'
modified: '2026-06-03'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
apis:
- aid: brown:bdr-api
  name: Brown Digital Repository (BDR) API
  description: Public REST/search API for the Brown Digital Repository, the library's platform for gathering, indexing, storing,
    preserving, and making available digital assets from scholarly, instructional, research, and administrative activity at
    Brown. The search endpoint returns JSON and is publicly reachable.
  humanURL: https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/api-docs/
  baseURL: https://repository.library.brown.edu/api/search/
  tags:
  - Digital Repository
  - Library
  - Search
  - Research Data
  - JSON
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/api-docs/
  - type: GitHub
    url: https://github.com/Brown-University-Library
- aid: brown:iiif
  name: Brown Digital Repository IIIF Service
  description: IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework) image and presentation service exposing IIIF manifests
    for objects in the Brown Digital Repository. Brown is listed as a IIIF repository case study by the IIIF community.
  humanURL: https://iiif.io/guides/guides/repository.library.brown.edu/
  baseURL: https://repository.library.brown.edu/iiif/
  tags:
  - IIIF
  - Image
  - Library
  - Digital Repository
  tags_raw:
  - IIIF
  - Images
  - Library
  - Digital Repository
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://iiif.io/guides/guides/repository.library.brown.edu/
- aid: brown:sso
  name: Brown Shibboleth Single Sign-On (SAML)
  description: Brown's InCommon-federated Shibboleth identity provider implementing the OASIS SAML 2.0 standard for web single
    sign-on across Brown web services. Used for authentication/attribute release rather than as an open public API.
  humanURL: https://ithelp.brown.edu/kb/shibboleth-single-sign-on
  baseURL: https://sso.brown.edu/idp/shibboleth
  tags:
  - Authentication
  - SSO
  - SAML
  - Shibboleth
  - Identity
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://ithelp.brown.edu/kb/shibboleth-single-sign-on
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://sso.brown.edu/idp/shibboleth
common:
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/brown-domain-security.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://www.brown.edu
- type: GitHub
  url: https://github.com/Brown-University-Library
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/school/brown-university/
- type: DeveloperPortal
  url: https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/api-docs/
- type: Authentication
  url: https://sso.brown.edu/idp/shibboleth
- type: Plans
  url: plans/brown-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/brown-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/brown-finops.yml
- type: Review
  url: review.yml
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com

Brown University

Kin Score

APIs 3

Brown Digital Repository (BDR) API

Brown Digital Repository IIIF Service

Brown Shibboleth Single Sign-On (SAML)

Pricing Plans 1

Brown Plans Pricing

Rate Limits 1

Brown Rate Limits

FinOps 1

Brown Finops

Semantic Vocabularies 1

Brown Context

Security Posture 1

Brown Domain Security

Resources