columbia-clio

name: columbia-clio description: Search Columbia University Libraries' CLIO catalog for books, journals, manuscripts, and other holdings via its Blacklight JSON API. Use this skill whenever the user wants to look up items in Columbia's library, check availability of books at Columbia, search by title/author/subject with faceted filtering by format/language/location, or retrieve detailed catalog records including call numbers and holdings data. Triggers when referencing Columbia University collections or Ivy League library holdings. version: 1.0.0

Columbia CLIO Catalog Skill

Search Columbia University Libraries' catalog of books, journals, manuscripts, and more.

Critical: Things Claude Won't Know Without This Skill

CLIO has an undocumented but fully functional JSON API

CLIO runs on Blacklight (Solr-based). Append .json to catalog URLs for JSON responses. No API key required.

Search:  https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog.json?q=hamlet&per_page=10
Record:  https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/{id}.json

Field-specific search uses `search_field` parameter

All fields: ?q=hamlet
Title only: ?q=hamlet&search_field=title
Author:     ?q=shakespeare&search_field=author

Facets use array bracket syntax

?f[format][]=Book
?f[language_facet][]=Chinese&f[format][]=Book

Available facets: format, language_facet, location_facet, subject_topic_facet, subject_geo_facet, subject_era_facet, subject_form_facet, pub_date_sort.

This is undocumented — be a good citizen

No rate limits are documented, but this is an unofficial API. Keep requests to 1/second max. The official bulk data is at https://lito.cul.columbia.edu/extracts/ColumbiaLibraryCatalog/full/ (MARCXML, CC0).

Key Search Parameters

Param	Description	Example
`q`	Search query	`q=dream+of+the+red+chamber`
`search_field`	Limit to field: `title`, `author`, or all	`search_field=title`
`per_page`	Results per page (default ~10)	`per_page=25`
`page`	Page number	`page=2`
`sort`	Sort: `pub_date_sort+desc`, `pub_date_sort+asc`	`sort=pub_date_sort+desc`
`f[facet][]`	Filter by facet value	`f[format][]=Book`

Response Structure

{
  "response": {
    "docs": [
      {
        "id": "12345678",
        "title_display": "Hamlet",
        "author_display": "Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616",
        "format": ["Book"],
        "pub_year_display": ["2003"],
        "pub_name_display": ["Cambridge University Press"],
        "language_facet": ["English"],
        "isbn_display": ["9780521532525"],
        "location_call_number_id_display": ["Butler Stacks PR2807 .A2 T48 2003 "]
      }
    ],
    "facets": [ ... ],
    "pages": {
      "current_page": 1,
      "total_pages": 5330,
      "total_count": 10659,
      "next_page": 2
    }
  }
}

Key Document Fields

Field	Description
`id`	Catalog record ID
`title_display`	Title
`author_display`	Primary author
`author_facet`	All authors (array)
`format`	Format (Book, Online, Music, etc.)
`pub_year_display`	Publication year(s)
`pub_name_display`	Publisher
`pub_place_display`	Place of publication
`language_facet`	Language(s)
`isbn_display`	ISBN(s)
`oclc_display`	OCLC number(s)
`lccn_display`	LCCN(s)
`subject_topic_facet`	Subject terms
`location_call_number_id_display`	Location + call number
`physical_description_display`	Physical description

Python Script

from scripts.clio_api import ColumbiaClioAPI
clio = ColumbiaClioAPI()

# Search
results = clio.search("hamlet", search_field="title", per_page=10)

# With facets
results = clio.search("chinese poetry", facets={"format": "Book", "language_facet": "Chinese"})

# Get single record
record = clio.get_record("12345678")

# Summarize
for r in results:
    print(clio.summarize(r))

Related Skills

harvard-library-catalog: Compare holdings across Harvard and Columbia
hathitrust-catalog: Use ISBNs/OCLCs from CLIO to check HathiTrust for digital versions
wikidata-search: Link OCLC numbers to Wikidata entities

Resources

references/api_reference.md — Complete field and facet reference
scripts/clio_api.py — Python client with search, record lookup, and faceted filtering