Library of Congress Scraper - Photos & Collections

Scrape Library of Congress digital collections in bulk. Extract item title, date, description, subjects, image URL, format, collection, language and access status from any search to CSV/JSON. No API key.

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What does the Library of Congress Scraper do?

This Actor turns any Library of Congress search into a structured dataset. You give it photos or another section, it walks the result pages one after another, and it writes one clean row per item into your dataset — ready to export as JSON, CSV or Excel, or to pull straight from the Apify API.

The Library of Congress exposes its catalogue as JSON by appending fo=json to any search URL, and the Actor uses that. Image URLs come back on the record, so an export is a downloadable manifest rather than a list of references. Pagination is followed automatically until it runs out of results, hits your page limit or hits your Max items cap, whichever comes first. Every row is de-duplicated across the whole run, so you are never billed twice for the same item.

There is no API key, no login and no browser involved. That keeps runs fast and cheap, and it means you can schedule the Actor without worrying about credentials expiring.

Who is it for?

• AI and ML teams sourcing historical imagery with provenance.
• Publishers and documentary researchers finding archival material.
• Educators assembling primary-source collections.
• Digital humanities researchers analysing an archive at scale.
• Developers building discovery tools over public archives.

Use cases

• Export every photograph matching a topic with its image URL.
• Analyse how an archive's holdings are distributed by date.
• Filter to unrestricted items for reuse.
• Build a labelled historical image dataset.
• Survey a named collection end to end.

Why use this Library of Congress Scraper?

• 🔑 Keyless — no account, no API token, no cookies to paste.
• 📦 16 fields per item — everything the result page exposes, already typed.
• 📄 Real pagination — it walks page after page instead of returning the first screen.
• 🎯 Precise caps — Max items stops the run exactly where you want it, so the bill is predictable.
• 📊 Export anywhere — JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, plus the Apify API and integrations.
• 💸 Pay per result — you pay for rows you actually receive, with no platform fees to calculate.

What data can you extract?

Every run produces one row per item, with these fields:

Field	Type	Description
itemId	string	Library of Congress item URL used as the identifier
title	string	Item title
itemUrl	string	Catalogue page for the item
date	string	Date as published by the catalogue
description	string	Description text, separated by a pipe when multiple
imageUrl	string	Image URL supplied by the catalogue
originalFormat	string	Original format, e.g. photo, print, drawing
onlineFormat	string	Online format, e.g. image or pdf
subjects	string	Subjects, separated by a pipe
language	string	Languages, separated by a pipe
partOf	string	Collections the item belongs to, separated by a pipe
isDigitized	boolean	Whether the item is digitised
accessRestricted	boolean	Whether access is restricted
query	string	Search term this row came from
page	number	Result page the item appeared on
scrapedAt	string	ISO timestamp of extraction

Output example

{
  "accessRestricted": true,
  "date": "1895-01-01",
  "description": "1 photographic print. | Menai Bridge Village, Wales.",
  "imageUrl": "https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/pnp/cph/3c00000/3c01000/3c01200/3c01204_150px.jpg",
  "isDigitized": true,
  "itemId": "http://www.loc.gov/item/90710744/",
  "itemUrl": "https://www.loc.gov/item/90710744/",
  "language": "english",
  "onlineFormat": "image",
  "originalFormat": "photo, print, drawing",
  "page": 1,
  "partOf": "prints and photographs division | prints & photographs online catalog (library of congress) | miscellaneous items in high demand | lot 4491 | catalog",
  "query": "bridge",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-17T08:45:06.083Z",
  "subjects": "menai bridge | photographic prints | bridges | wales",
  "title": "Britannia Bridge"
}

How to use

Option A — photos

{
  "maxItems": 1000,
  "maxPagesPerSearch": 10,
  "searchTerms": [
    "bridge"
  ],
  "section": "photos"
}

1. Open the Actor and fill in the photos field.
2. Set Max pages per search and Max items to bound the run.
3. Click Start, then export from the Output tab.

Option B — another section

{
  "maxItems": 500,
  "maxPagesPerSearch": 10,
  "searchTerms": [
    "railroad"
  ],
  "section": "maps"
}

Paste one or more Library of Congress URLs into Start URLs and the Actor paginates each of them independently.

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
searchTerms	array	–	What to search the archive for, e.
section	string	photos	Which part of the archive to search.
maxPagesPerSearch	integer	3	How many result pages to walk for each search.
maxItems	integer	100	Stop after this many items.
maxConcurrency	integer	2	Parallel requests.
proxyConfiguration	object	{"useApifyProxy": true}	Proxy used to fetch pages.

Tips for best results

• Pick the section that matches your need: photos, maps, newspapers, audio or the whole catalogue.
• The API returns up to 100 items per page, so exports need few calls.
• accessRestricted false is the quickest filter when you intend to reuse material.
• imageUrl is supplied at catalogue resolution; open the item page for the highest-resolution master.
• partOf names the collection, which is the most useful way to slice the archive.
• Dates in this archive are historical and often approximate — treat them as labels, not timestamps.
• subjects is pipe-separated so the column survives a CSV round trip.
• Always keep the item URL with any image you republish, for attribution.
• Keep concurrency low — this is a public institution's free service.
• Pair with the Art Institute and Cleveland Museum scrapers for a wider open-collection set.

Integrations

Send results straight into the tools you already use: Google Sheets, Slack, Zapier, Make, Airtable or any Webhook. You can also schedule the Actor to run hourly, daily or weekly and have each run append to the same dataset, which is how you build a price or availability history rather than a one-off snapshot.

API usage

Run the Actor and collect results from any language. Replace <YOUR_TOKEN> with your Apify API token.

cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/logiover~loc-digital-collections-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"maxItems": 1000, "maxPagesPerSearch": 10, "searchTerms": ["bridge"], "section": "photos"}'

Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '<YOUR_TOKEN>' });
const run = await client.actor('logiover/loc-digital-collections-scraper').call({"maxItems": 1000, "maxPagesPerSearch": 10, "searchTerms": ["bridge"], "section": "photos"});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('<YOUR_TOKEN>')
run = client.actor('logiover/loc-digital-collections-scraper').call(run_input={"maxItems": 1000, "maxPagesPerSearch": 10, "searchTerms": ["bridge"], "section": "photos"})
for item in client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).iterate_items():
    print(item)

Use with AI agents (MCP)

This Actor is available through the Apify MCP server, so an AI agent can call it as a tool. Point your agent at https://mcp.apify.com and it can run the Library of Congress Scraper on demand — for example: "Pull the first 500 items from Library of Congress and summarise the price distribution." The agent receives the same structured rows you would get from the UI.

FAQ

Do I need a Library of Congress account or API key?

No. The Actor reads publicly available pages only. There is nothing to authenticate and no credentials to rotate.

How many items can I get in one run?

As many as the search exposes. Raise Max pages per search and Max items together; the run stops at whichever limit it reaches first.

Why did I get fewer rows than I asked for?

The search ran out of items. That is normal for narrow queries — broaden the search or add more searches to one run.

Are results de-duplicated?

Yes. Each item is emitted once per run, even when it appears on several pages, so you are never billed twice for the same record.

Why are some fields empty?

Library of Congress does not publish every attribute for every item. Empty means the source did not show it, not that extraction failed.

What export formats are supported?

JSON, CSV, Excel, HTML and RSS from the Output tab, plus the Apify API and any integration you connect.

How fast is it?

It is pure HTTP with no browser, so a page of results typically takes a second or two. Raise Max concurrency carefully — the source rate-limits aggressive crawling.

Can I schedule it?

Yes. Use the Apify scheduler to run it on any interval and append each run to the same dataset for time-series analysis.

Does it work behind a proxy?

It uses Apify Proxy automatically. You can switch groups or supply your own proxies in Proxy configuration.

How often does the data change?

Library of Congress updates continuously. Re-run whenever you need current data; the Actor always reads the live pages, never a cache.

Is the output schema stable?

Yes. Field names and types are fixed, so downstream pipelines will not break between runs.

What if the site changes its layout?

Open an issue on the Issues tab and it gets fixed. The Actor is actively maintained.

Is it legal?

This Actor reads only publicly available pages on Library of Congress — the same content any visitor sees without logging in. It does not bypass authentication, does not collect private data and does not attempt to defeat access controls. You are responsible for how you use the output: respect the source's terms of service, applicable copyright, and data-protection law such as GDPR where personal data is involved. Scraping public data is generally lawful in the EU and the US, but the responsibility for the downstream use of that data sits with you.

Related scrapers

• Art Institute Scraper — Open-access artworks
• Cleveland Museum Scraper — CC0 collection
• Internet Archive Scraper — Archive metadata
• Openverse Scraper — Openly licensed media