Institute of Museum and Library Services

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is an independent federal agency that advances, supports, and empowers America's museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development. IMLS provides data access to grant and museum information through its APIs.

Institute of Museum and Library Services is listed with 1 API on the APIs.io network. Tagged areas include Federal Government, Grants, Library, and Museums.

Institute of Museum and Library Services’ developer surface includes support, engineering blog, and 7 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Profile data on GitHub

8.3/100 minimal ▬ flat Agent 1/100 human only Front door AI 3/6 light Heartbeat 70/100 alive Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0 · Show this score on your site →

AccessFreemium

1 API

Federal Government Grants Library Museums

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0

Composite quality — 8.3/100 · minimal

Contract Quality 0.0 / 21

Developer Ergonomics 2.0 / 17

Access Clarity 1.3 / 17

Operational Transparency 1.2 / 11

Contract Governance 0.0 / 10

Discoverability 4.1 / 9

Regulatory Posture 0.9 / 15

Agent readiness — 1/100 · human only

Machine-Readable Contract 0 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 0 / 10

Documented Reversibility 0 / 6

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 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

Delegated User Identity 0 / 6

Protected Resource Metadata 0 / 5

Registration Without a Human 0 / 6

Agentic Commerce Well-Known Document 0 / 5

Pagination 5 / 5

Distinct Operations 3 / 3

MCP Tool Quality 6 / 6

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.

Create-or-Update Ergonomics could not be measured. We hold no machine-readable contract for this provider to read, so there is nothing to measure a write surface against. Excluded rather than scored zero: never-measured and measured-empty are different facts. Publishing an OpenAPI is what makes this facet — and several others — scorable at all.

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/.

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Agent readiness — checks not met, largest first (exact, from this profile):

Machine-Readable Contract +18 pts — api_specs includes an OpenAPI document
MCP Server +12 pts — deployment.mode + probe verdict on the mcp/ manifest, not the pointer; an unprobed slug falls back to authorship
Agentic Access Contract +10 pts — agentic_access artifact present (x-agentic-access), graded by author
Machine-Readable Auth +10 pts — a served openid-configuration/oauth-authorization-server carrying `issuer` (served), else the securitySchemes class in the provider OpenAPIs — bound (mutualTLS, DPoP, Signature) > negotiable (oauth2 authorizationCode/clientCredentials, openIdConnect) > bearer (http bearer, apiKey)
Idempotency +9 pts — OpenAPI mutating operations declare an idempotency key — a header, a request-body property, or a named de-duplication token whose own description says so (verified); else common[].type matches /idempoten/i (documented)
Stable Error Semantics +8 pts — OpenAPI $refs a shared error schema across 4xx/5xx responses (verified), else common[].type includes ErrorCatalog / ErrorCodes / DeclineCodes

12 more unmet checks in the Agent Readiness table above.

Kin Score — facets with the most composite points still available (weight × headroom):

Contract Quality scores 0.0 — up to +25.0 composite points
Access Clarity scores 7.9 — up to +18.4 composite points
Developer Ergonomics scores 11.9 — up to +17.6 composite points

Each check links to what satisfies it. Publish the artifact, or tell us where it already lives, and the score moves on the next scoring run.

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. This rating is computed from the provider profile at artifacts.apis.io/institute-of-museum-and-library-services/apis.yml: open an issue on github.com/api-evangelist/institute-of-museum-and-library-services to ask a question or point us at an artifact you publish. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

Markets this provider is in provisional

The Kin Score Market layer reads a provider inside its market: its position, and how deep its integrations go. Depth is only comparable within a position. Provisional and unweighted: not part of the Kin Score or agent readiness.

Market	Position	Depth	Registered MCP server	Declares compatibility
US Federal API Programs (api.data.gov, Login.gov, GSA MAS, FedRAMP)	undeclared	-	-	-

Registered MCP server and declares compatibility are report only — not weighted. Undeclared means we found nothing we can read, so there is no number: we never infer integrations.

APIs 1

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

IMLS Data Catalog API

The IMLS Data Catalog provides public access to IMLS grants data and museum information through an API, enabling researchers and developers to access grant information, museum l...

Institute of Museum and Library Services API pricing

Not yet checked against Institute of Museum and Library Services's own pricing page. Compiled by API Evangelist on 2026-05-04; confirm before you rely on a figure. A free plan or tier is listed.

Plan	Price
Free freemium	Free
Professional paid	Free
Enterprise enterprise	—

Plan details, limits and sources →

Rate limits

Free Tier Default: 10 requests per minute
Free Tier Monthly Quota: 1000 requests per month
Professional Tier Default: 100 requests per minute

Compiled by API Evangelist, not yet checked against Institute of Museum and Library Services's documentation. All 5 limits →

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Institute Of Museum And Library Services Plans Pricing

3 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Institute Of Museum And Library Services Rate Limits

5 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

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

Institute Of Museum And Library Services Finops

FINOPS

Security Posture 1

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Institute Of Museum And Library Services Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · DNSSEC · DMARC

SECURITY

Resources

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHubOrganization

GitHubOrganization

Access & Security 1

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Operate 2

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

RateLimits

RateLimits

Support

Support

Commercial 2

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Plans

Plans

FinOps

FinOps

Company 3

The organization behind the API

LinkedIn

Website

Website

Blog

Blog

Source (apis.yml)

aid: institute-of-museum-and-library-services
name: Institute of Museum and Library Services
description: The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is an independent federal agency that advances, supports,
  and empowers America's museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development.
  IMLS provides data access to grant and museum information through its APIs.
type: Index
deliveryModel:
  model: unknown
  open_source: false
  commercial: false
  callable_host: false
  label: Delivery model not determined — needs a product licence on record
  confidence: low
  source:
  - none
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Freemium
  confidence: low
  source:
  - plans
  - security
  generated: '2026-11-06'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/institute-of-museum-and-library-services.png
tags:
- Federal Government
- Grants
- Library
- Museums
tags_raw:
- Federal Government
- Grants
- Libraries
- Museums
- Federal-Government
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/institute-of-museum-and-library-services/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
created: '2024-12-03'
modified: '2026-04-28'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
apis:
- aid: institute-of-museum-and-library-services:imls-data-catalog
  name: IMLS Data Catalog API
  description: The IMLS Data Catalog provides public access to IMLS grants data and museum information through an API, enabling
    researchers and developers to access grant information, museum locations, and program data.
  humanURL: https://www.imls.gov/research-evaluation/data-collection/museum-data-files
  tags:
  - Federal Government
  - Grants
  - Library
  - Museums
  tags_raw:
  - Federal Government
  - Grants
  - Libraries
  - Museums
  - Federal-Government
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.imls.gov/research-evaluation/data-collection/museum-data-files
common:
- type: Plans
  url: plans/institute-of-museum-and-library-services-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/institute-of-museum-and-library-services-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/institute-of-museum-and-library-services-finops.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/institute-of-museum-and-library-services-domain-security.yml
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/imls
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/us-imls
- type: Website
  url: https://www.imls.gov/
- type: Support
  url: https://www.imls.gov/contact
- url: https://www.imls.gov/blog
  type: Blog
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com

Institute of Museum and Library Services API — frequently asked questions

Does Institute of Museum and Library Services have an API?

Yes. APIs.io lists 1 API from Institute of Museum and Library Services, including IMLS Data Catalog API.

How much does the Institute of Museum and Library Services API cost?

APIs.io lists 3 pricing plans for Institute of Museum and Library Services, with each plan's price, limits and inclusions under Pricing on this page.

Is the Institute of Museum and Library Services API ready for AI agents?

Institute of Museum and Library Services has a Kin Score of 8.3 out of 100 (minimal) and an Agent Readiness score of 0.6 (human-only), scored by API Evangelist on 2026-11-06.

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get_provider_artifactsEvery artifact this provider publishes, grouped by type.
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get_provider_toolsEvery MCP tool they ship, with the operation each wraps.
get_provider_evidenceHow each part of their score was established. Free — the basis for a claim should not sit behind it.
get_provider_ratingPRO — composite, band, trend and facet scores.
apis_io_searchSTART HERE — APIs, providers and tags for one query, each with its total.
resolveTurn a domain, URL or GitHub org into the provider it belongs to.
find_cohortsEvery scored population of providers in the catalog.

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