This is really fantastic to see in the wild on HN. In my day job, I’m part of the team that sponsors (i.e. covers hosting costs for) this and a number of other really interesting datasets.
It's very distractingly awesome searching for something like "dog painting" and wandering around the exhibit created from the results. There's just so much.
Thank you for helping making this resource available.
Our team wasn't involved in the Smithsonian API portion—we really focus on the bulk access pattern, mostly via object storage (e.g. S3). That is, we see object storage / "just give me all the data" as the base of the pyramid for data access.
Purpose built APIs that add value can be consumers of data via more general access patterns. Specialized APIs can add heaps of value for a given use case, but they can also limit the breadth of applications for other use cases.
Curious, because I know Dr. Clough went to there after his stint at Georgia Tech. Would love to read the story of how digitization was implemented: that's a big ship to turn! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._Wayne_Clough#Secretary_of_t...