# Library of Congress: manuscripts, prints and photographs (loc.gov API)

> Digitized records, Cultural heritage items for United States. Access: Public API. Terms checked November 2, 2026.

- Slug: loc-gov
- Page: https://api.lineage.rexstjohn.com/sources/loc-gov
- JSON: https://api.lineage.rexstjohn.com/v1/sources/loc-gov
- Records: Digitized records, Cultural heritage items
- Places: United States
- Years: Not stated by the source
- Access method: api
- Key required: no
- Rate limit: loc.gov JSON/YAML API: 20 requests per minute, with a 1 hour block if exceeded; the legal page asks for no more than 10 a minute in total, and robots.txt sets a crawl delay of 5 seconds. Shared with loc-chronicling-america.
- Status: live
- Review: verified, checked by hand on 2026-11-02
- Homepage: https://www.loc.gov/
- API docs: https://www.loc.gov/apis/json-and-yaml/
- Terms: https://www.loc.gov/legal/

## Notes

The same loc.gov JSON API as Chronicling America, on the manuscripts and prints and photographs formats: letters, orders, maps and prints of the war. robots.txt disallows /search and /pictures/search for crawlers; Lineage reads the API with fo=json, never those pages. Each item carries its own rights advisory: an image is used only with its rights statement recorded, and is captioned as context, never as a portrait of the person researched.

## Evidence

- https://www.loc.gov/apis/json-and-yaml/
- https://www.loc.gov/apis/json-and-yaml/working-within-limits/
- https://www.loc.gov/legal/
- https://www.loc.gov/robots.txt

## Status

Live at the last check, 2026-11-03 04:33 UTC. HTTP 200 in 21 ms. One check a day.

This file describes a catalog entry only.