Smithsonian Institution

The Smithsonian Institution provides open access APIs to its collections of over 22 million objects, artworks, and natural history specimens from 19 museums, 21 libraries, and 9 research centers. The Open Access API enables developers to search and retrieve collection data, images, and metadata across the world's largest museum and research complex.

Smithsonian Institution publishes 3 APIs on the APIs.io network: Content API, Metrics API, and Search API. Tagged areas include Collection, Cultural Heritage, Museums, Open Data, and Art.

The Smithsonian Institution catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 2 Spectral governance rulesets.

Smithsonian Institution’s developer surface includes authentication and 12 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub

32.2/100 thin ▬ flat Agent 35/100 agent ready Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-08-20 · rubric v0.12.0

AccessFreemiumSelf serve⚡ Free to try

3 APIs

Collection Cultural Heritage Museums Open Data ArtNatural HistoryResearch

Kin Score

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

Composite quality — 32.2/100 · thin

Contract Quality 12.9 / 21

Developer Ergonomics 2.0 / 17

Access Clarity 2.7 / 17

Operational Transparency 1.2 / 11

Contract Governance 1.0 / 10

Discoverability 6.3 / 9

Regulatory Posture 4.7 / 15

Agent readiness — 35/100 · agent ready

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10

Documented Reversibility 6 / 6

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10

Idempotency 9 / 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 4 / 4

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Government & Public Sector 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/smithsonian-institution: 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.

Smithsonian Institution Rate Limits

5 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

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

JSON Schema 1

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

Examples 1

Example request and response payloads for these APIs.

AGENTIC

Resources

Get Started 1

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

Open Access Portal

Open Access Portal

Documentation 1

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Metadata Documentation

Metadata Documentation

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

AgenticAccess

Build 3

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

Developer Tools

Developer Tools

GitHubOrganization

GitHubOrganization

Python Client

Python Client

Access & Security 3

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Authentication

Authentication

API Key Registration

API Key Registration

Commercial 1

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

License

License

Company 2

The organization behind the API

LinkedIn

Website

Website

Other 1

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Data Repository

Data Repository

Source (apis.yml)

aid: smithsonian-institution
name: Smithsonian Institution
description: The Smithsonian Institution provides open access APIs to its collections of over 22 million objects, artworks,
  and natural history specimens from 19 museums, 21 libraries, and 9 research centers. The Open Access API enables developers
  to search and retrieve collection data, images, and metadata across the world's largest museum and research complex.
type: Index
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: self-serve
  trial: false
  try_now: true
  public: false
  label: Freemium · Self-serve signup
  confidence: high
  source:
  - plans
  - authentication
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/smithsonian-institution.png
tags:
- Collection
- Cultural Heritage
- Museums
- Open Data
- Art
- Natural History
- Research
tags_raw:
- Collections
- Cultural Heritage
- Museums
- Open Data
- Art
- Natural History
- Research
created: '2024-12-25'
modified: '2026-05-19'
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/smithsonian-institution/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
specificationVersion: '0.23'
apis:
- aid: smithsonian-institution:smithsonian-institution-content-api
  name: Smithsonian Institution Content API
  description: The Content API from Smithsonian Institution — 1 operation(s) for content.
  humanURL: https://www.si.edu/openaccess/devtools
  baseURL: https://edan.si.edu/openaccess
  tags:
  - Content
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/smithsonian-institution-content-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.si.edu/openaccess/devtools
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://edan.si.edu/openaccess/docs/
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/Smithsonian/smithsonian-openaccess
  - type: Signup
    url: https://api.data.gov/signup
- aid: smithsonian-institution:smithsonian-institution-metrics-api
  name: Smithsonian Institution Metrics API
  description: The Metrics API from Smithsonian Institution — 1 operation(s) for metrics.
  humanURL: https://www.si.edu/openaccess/devtools
  baseURL: https://edan.si.edu/openaccess
  tags:
  - Metrics
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/smithsonian-institution-metrics-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.si.edu/openaccess/devtools
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://edan.si.edu/openaccess/docs/
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/Smithsonian/smithsonian-openaccess
  - type: Signup
    url: https://api.data.gov/signup
- aid: smithsonian-institution:smithsonian-institution-search-api
  name: Smithsonian Institution Search API
  description: The Search API from Smithsonian Institution — 3 operation(s) for search.
  humanURL: https://www.si.edu/openaccess/devtools
  baseURL: https://edan.si.edu/openaccess
  tags:
  - Search
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/smithsonian-institution-search-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.si.edu/openaccess/devtools
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://edan.si.edu/openaccess/docs/
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/Smithsonian/smithsonian-openaccess
  - type: Signup
    url: https://api.data.gov/signup
common:
- type: License
  name: Apache-2.0
  url: https://github.com/Smithsonian/smithsonian-openaccess/blob/main/LICENSE
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/smithsonian-institution-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/smithsonian-institution-domain-security.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/smithsonian-institution-authentication.yml
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/smithsonian-institution
- type: Website
  url: https://www.si.edu/
- type: Open Access Portal
  url: https://www.si.edu/openaccess
- type: Developer Tools
  url: https://www.si.edu/openaccess/devtools
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/Smithsonian
- type: Data Repository
  url: https://github.com/Smithsonian/OpenAccess
- type: API Key Registration
  url: https://api.data.gov/signup
- type: Python Client
  url: https://github.com/Smithsonian/smithsonian-openaccess
- type: Metadata Documentation
  url: https://edan.si.edu/openaccess/docs/
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com

Smithsonian Institution

APIs 3

Open Collections 5

Pricing Plans 1