Digital Public Library of America

aid: dpla
name: Digital Public Library of America
description: The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) provides a free REST API that gives access to metadata for 50 million+
  cultural heritage items aggregated from 4,000+ US libraries, archives, and museums. The API supports full-text search, field-specific
  queries, geographic and date range filtering, faceted browsing, and JSONP callbacks. All results are returned as JSON-LD.
  API keys are issued free of charge via a self-service email-based registration endpoint. DPLA aggregates contributions from
  cultural heritage institutions across the United States and makes the combined metadata freely available to researchers,
  developers, and the public.
type: Index
position: Provider
access: Public
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
tags:
- Cultural Heritage
- Libraries
- Archives
- Museums
- Open Data
- Metadata
- Digital Collections
- Public Domain
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/dpla/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
created: '2026-06-13'
modified: '2026-06-13'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
- aid: dpla:items-api
  name: DPLA Items API
  description: The DPLA Items API provides search and retrieval of metadata records for cultural heritage objects aggregated
    from 4,000+ US institutions. Supports full-text search, field-level queries, boolean and wildcard operators, geographic
    distance queries, date range filtering, and faceted aggregations. Returns JSON-LD records containing title, creator, date,
    subject, rights, provider, and thumbnail information. Pagination supports up to 100 results per page and batch retrieval
    of up to 50 items by ID in a single request.
  humanURL: https://pro.dp.la/developers/api-codex
  baseURL: https://api.dp.la/v2
  tags:
  - Items
  - Search
  - Metadata
  - Cultural Heritage
  - Libraries
  - Archives
  - Museums
  - JSON-LD
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://pro.dp.la/developers/api-codex
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://pro.dp.la/developers/api-codex
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://pro.dp.la/developers/api-codex
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/dpla/api
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/dpla/refs/heads/main/openapi/openapi.yml
- aid: dpla:api-key-registration
  name: DPLA API Key Registration
  description: Self-service API key registration endpoint that issues free access keys via email. Developers submit their
    email address via HTTP POST and receive an API key by email. The key is then passed as the api_key query parameter or
    Authorization header on all subsequent Items API requests.
  humanURL: https://pro.dp.la/developers/api-codex
  baseURL: https://api.dp.la/v2
  tags:
  - Authentication
  - API Keys
  - Registration
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://pro.dp.la/developers/api-codex
common:
- type: Website
  url: https://dp.la/
- type: DeveloperPortal
  url: https://pro.dp.la/developers
- type: Documentation
  url: https://pro.dp.la/developers/api-codex
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/dpla
- type: GitHubRepository
  url: https://github.com/dpla/api
- type: Blog
  url: https://dp.la/news
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-public-library-of-america
- type: Twitter
  url: https://twitter.com/dpla
- type: RateLimits
  url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/dpla/refs/heads/main/rate-limits/rate-limits.yml
- type: Plans
  url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/dpla/refs/heads/main/plans/plans.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/dpla/refs/heads/main/finops/finops.yml
- type: JSONLDContext
  url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/dpla/refs/heads/main/json-ld/context.jsonld
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com