Evidence-backed facts
- National Archives documentation says the Catalog API offers public Catalog data in machine-readable JSON, including archival descriptions, authority records, metadata about digital objects, extracted text, and public contributions. This does not establish complete holdings, current record accuracy, complete digital-object access, or government authority for an Agent's use. informative
- Documentation says every request must include an assigned API key and warns against publishing it. The default key is read-only and has a documented default allowance of 10,000 queries per month; contribution writes require a registered Catalog user and a separately requested read/write key. This review did not request, create, test, or receive a key, account, write permission, or access to any record. informative
- Documentation describes keyword search across fields, ranges, sorting, selected returned fields, and JSON record or search-result metadata. It says users must not scrape or download all Catalog data through the API. This review does not establish a pagination, identifier, endpoint, filter, bulk-export, rate-limit-exception, or observed-service-behavior contract. informative
- Catalog metadata about digital objects, extracted text, tags, transcriptions, and comments are not a grant to retrieve media, reuse an asset, modify content, or represent modified content as National Archives material. The reviewed documentation does not establish record authenticity, completeness, legal effect, historical interpretation, or permission for any digital object or contribution. informative