Museum Collection APIs

1. Add .env* to .gitignore before your first commit.
2. Store the key in Vercel, either from the project's Settings → Environment Variables page or with vercel env add HARVARD_API_KEY.
3. For local development, run vercel env pull to download it to a git-ignored .env.local file.
4. Create a function such as api/harvard.js that reads process.env.HARVARD_API_KEY, and have your page fetch /api/harvard?q=….

// api/harvard.js — runs on Vercel's servers, never in the browser
export default async function handler(req, res) {
  const q = encodeURIComponent(req.query.q ?? "");
  const url = `https://api.harvardartmuseums.org/object` +
    `?apikey=${process.env.HARVARD_API_KEY}&keyword=${q}&hasimage=1&size=12`;

  const museum = await fetch(url);
  // Cache for a day at Vercel's edge: faster pages, fewer API calls
  res.setHeader("Cache-Control", "s-maxage=86400, stale-while-revalidate");
  res.status(museum.status).json(await museum.json());
}

• Show only images you're allowed to. Use each API's public-domain or CC0 filter, or show the item's licence next to it.
• Credit the museum on every artwork, and link back to the object's page on the museum's site where the API provides one.
• Be gentle with the servers. Request only the fields and page sizes you need, cache responses, and don't loop over thousands of objects. If you need lots of data, use the museum's bulk download instead.
• Hobby plan is for non-commercial projects. That covers coursework. Don't add ads or sell anything.
• Don't commit API dumps to your repo when the terms restrict caching (V&A, Harvard). Fetch the data at runtime instead.

• The standalone Artstor site closed on August 1, 2024. Its 2+ million images are now on JSTOR as "Artstor on JSTOR."
• Harvard students can sign in to JSTOR through Harvard Library, which also hosts images from Harvard's Fine Arts Library collection there.
• Allowed: using images in class, in assignments and in non-public portfolios, and linking to JSTOR's stable URLs from your site.
• Items in JSTOR's open collections, such as Open Artstor, carry their own licences and may be reused as those licences allow.

• Records use MODS, a library catalog format that's more complex than the museum APIs.
• Its terms and image licensing were not reviewed for this guide, so check them before building on it.

• Art Institute of Chicago API docs
• Art Institute of Chicago terms
• Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access API
• Met Collection API
• V&A API guide
• V&A terms and conditions
• Rijksmuseum data services
• Rijksmuseum data policy
• Harvard Art Museums API docs
• Smithsonian Open Access API
• api.data.gov developer manual
• Europeana: Accessing the APIs
• JSTOR Terms and Conditions of Use
• Artstor permitted uses
• Artstor images in JSTOR
• Harvard Library: Digital Images