The Record API provides direct access to the Europeana data, which is modeled using EDM. While EDM is an open flexible data model featuring various kind of resources and relations between them, the Record API (and the Europeana Collections Portal) supports the retrieval of a segment of EDM for practical purposes (a subgraph, to use strict terminology). These "atomic" EDM segments usually contain one Cultural Heritage Object (CHO), the aggregation information which connects the metadata and the digital representations together and a number of contextual resources such as the agents, places, concepts and time pertaining to the CHO.

Before start using this API, we recommend reading the introduction page for an overview of the EDM model, Registering for an API key, and reading the Terms of Use. If you want to get started with this API, go directly to the Getting Started section or try it out directly on the Console.

Deprecation Information

The following will be deprecated per the given date, ensure that your API clients are updated accordingly:

Roadmap and Changelog

We deploy new versions of the portal and API quite regularly, but not all new versions result in changes in the interface. The current version of the Record API is 2.9.0 (2019-07-15). To see the changes made for this version and also all previous releases, see the API changelog in the project GitHub.

Every call to the Record API is an HTTPS request in the following URL signature:

https://api.europeana.eu/record/v2/[RECORD_ID].[FORMAT]

Where the variables in the URL path mean:

Additional parameters may apply to the request above such as the API key and Browser access.

Supported Output Formats

The Record API supports 3 serialization formats, namely: JSON, JSON-LD and RDF/XML. The primary and default output supported by this API is JSON which also means that some fields are only available in this format. Both JSON-LD and RDF/XML are formats to represent Linked Data which used predefined transport schemas for serializing RDF data. To request a record in either of these formats, just alter the extension of the call to the desired format. The table below explains each of the formats and the respective extension.

Error Responses

An error occurring during processing of an API method is reported by (1) a relevant HTTP status code, (2) a value of the success field and (3) a meaningful error message in the error field. The following table shows the fields appearing within an error response:

The following kinds of errors can be returned by the API:

Example: Request to the Record API supplying an invalid (unknown) API key

https://api.europeana.eu/record/v2/90402/SK_A_3262.json?wskey=test

{
    "apikey": "test",
    "success": false,
    "error": "Invalid API key"
}

JSON is the primary output format of the Record API. It uses a Europeana specific schema for representing EDM data which is explained in this Section.

A response in JSON will always contain a number of fields that present information about the handling of the request, while the concrete information about the record is presented in the "object" field.

Object

Gathers all the information contained within a EDM metadata record.

JSON Structures and Fields for EDM

The JSON structures and fields defined in this section all represent classes and properties that are defined in EDM. We advise all readers that are not familiar with EDM to first have a look at our introduction page where we explain the model. The fields listed in the table below have direct links to where they are explained in the introduction page for quick help.

JSON Datatypes

The JSON output of this API uses the following datatypes:

JSON-LD stands for JSON for Linking Data and is one of the Linked Data formats that the Record API supports. The basic structure of the JSON-LD response is similar to the default JSON format of the Record API:

{
  "@context": {
    "ore": "http://www.openarchives.org/ore/terms/",
    "skos": "http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#",
    "dc": "http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/",
    "edm": "http://www.europeana.eu/schemas/edm/",
    "rdf": "http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#",
    "dcterms": "http://purl.org/dc/terms/",
    "foaf": "http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/",
    "geo": "http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#"
  },
  "@graph": [
    {
      "@id": "http://data.europeana.eu/aggregation/europeana/09102/_CM_0839888",
      "@type": "edm:EuropeanaAggregation",
      "dc:creator": "Europeana",
      "edm:aggregatedCHO": {
        "@id": "http://data.europeana.eu/item/09102/_CM_0839888"
      },
      "edm:collectionName": "09102_Ag_EU_MIMO_ESE",
      "edm:country": "Europe",
      "edm:landingPage": {
        "@id": "http://www.europeana.eu/portal/record/09102/_CM_0839888.html"
      },
      "edm:language": "mul",
      "edm:rights": {
        "@id": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/"
      }
    },
    {
      "@id": "http://data.europeana.eu/aggregation/provider/09102/_CM_0839888",
      "@type": "ore:Aggregation",
      ...
    },
    {
      "@id": "http://data.europeana.eu/item/09102/_CM_0839888",
      "@type": "edm:ProvidedCHO"
    },
    {
      "@id": "http://data.europeana.eu/proxy/europeana/09102/_CM_0839888",
      "@type": "ore:Proxy",
      ...
    },
    {
      "@id": "http://data.europeana.eu/proxy/provider/09102/_CM_0839888",
      "@type": "ore:Proxy",
      ...
    },
    {
      "@id": "http://mediatheque.cite-musique.fr/masc/play.asp?ID=0839888",
      "@type": "edm:WebResource"
    },
    {
      "@id": "http://semium.org/time/1910",
      "@type": "edm:TimeSpan",
      ...
    },
    {
      "@id": "http://semium.org/time/19xx_1_third",
      "@type": "edm:TimeSpan",
      ...
    },
    {
      "@id": "http://sws.geonames.org/2950159",
      "@type": "edm:Place",
      ...
    },
    {
      "@id": "http://www.geonames.org/2950159",
      "@type": "edm:Place",
      ...
    },
    {
      "@id": "http://www.mimo-db.eu/InstrumentsKeywords/4495",
      "@type": "skos:Concept",
      ...
    },
    {
      "@id": "http://www.mimo-db.eu/media/MF-GET/IMAGE/MFIM000024482.jpg",
      "@type": "edm:WebResource",
      ...
    }
  ]
}

The big differences between normal JSON and JSON-LD are

1. JSON-LD makes use of Internationalized Resource Identifiers, IRIs as property names. This ensures that each statement of a record matches a standard vocabulary. In Europeana's implementation the properties are qualified names (in the format of "namespace_prefix:property_name" such as "dc:creator") for the sake of brevity. In the normal JSON response we use non-standard camel case ("dcCreator") property names. In the JSON Section you can find the connections between our camelCase property names and the JSON-LD and RDF qualified names.

2. JSON-LD has a @context part, which links object properties in a JSON document to concepts in an ontology. In our JSON-LD this lists the used namespaces and their prefixes.

3. JSON-LD makes a distinction between values that are string literals from values that are other resources.

A resource as value:

{
  "edm:landingPage": {
    "@id": "http://www.europeana.eu/portal/record/09102/_CM_0839888.html"
  },
  ...
}

A string literal as value:

{
  "dc:creator": "Europeana",
   ...
}

The XML output is primarily based on RDF/XML format for RDF serialization but following the EDM XSD schema (the same schema is also used for data ingestion to Europeana).

The structure of an RDF/XML document formated using the EDM XSD schema is as follows:

• The root element of the XML document is "rdf:RDF". This element will have declared all the namespaces required for the qualified names of all classes and properties being using within the document. A list of all supported namespaces can be view in the Introduction page.

• Within the root element, all instances of EDM classes are declared using the qualified name of the classes as the label for the XML element. An "rdf:about" attribute is present indicating the IRI of that instance.

The Thumbnail API is an extension of the Record API to allow the retrieval of cached thumbnails that are generated upon ingestion of the metadata by Europeana. Thumbnails are only generated for media resources that are referred through by edm:isShownBy, edm:isShownAt or edm:object properties which are then supplied using the edm:preview property.

Request

The Thumbnail API doesn't require any form of authentication, providing your API key is optional. It always returns an image, whether the thumbnail exists or not. To use the Search API to verify whether a thumbnail exists you can add has_thumbnail=true to your search query, or check if the edmPreview field in the search or record response has a value (which is the URL of the thumbnail).

Every call to the Thumbnail API is an HTTP request in the following URL signature:

https://api.europeana.eu/thumbnail/v2/url.json?uri=URI&type=TYPE&size=SIZE

Response

The thumbnail API call responds with an image in the given size. If the thumbnail does not exist, the API returns a 'default' image which is specific to the 'type' that is provided.

Example

Obtain a 400px thumbnail from the image located at https://www.dropbox.com/s/8gpbipwr4ipwj37/Austria_Gerstl.jpg?raw=1:

https://api.europeana.eu/thumbnail/v2/url.json?uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dropbox.com%2Fs%2F8gpbipwr4ipwj37%2FAustria_Gerstl.jpg%3Fraw%3D1&type=IMAGE&size=w400

Datatypes for request parameters

The following datatypes are defined for the request parameters used in this method.