ZBS Index What actually exists in applied AI, with the source next to it

mcp server

smithsonian-mcp-server

Search 14.5M Smithsonian Open Access objects, get CC0 images, find cross-collection connections.

Description as published by the maintainer. Source

  • version 0.3.5
  • active
  • retrieval

active — Most recent push to the repository was 2026-07-30. Dashed tags are derived by ZBS Index from the published description, not stated by the maintainer.

What this server can do

6 functions, named and described by the server itself. Parameter names are shown because they say more about what a function does than its name usually does.

smithsonian_browse_category(mode, rows, start, value)
Browse Smithsonian objects within one exact category — a single museum (mode "museum"), culture, indexed date term (mode "period"), object type (mode "medium"), or subject term (mode "topic"). The value must be an exact indexed category term, not free text: resolve museum, culture, period, and topic vocabulary with smithsonian_list_terms first (object_type is not enumerable there — harvest it from smithsonian_search_objects results, and treat each casing as its own category, since a harvested object_type covers only the casing it was written in). Returns the category total count, a page of matching objects, and a museum breakdown of that page; page the full category with start and rows. For open-ended or topic discovery, start with smithsonian_search_objects instead. Required: mode, value.
smithsonian_find_related(id, limit, start)
Discover objects across Smithsonian collections related to a given anchor object, matched on shared metadata signals — culture, period, object type, named parties, and topic terms. Each related object is tagged with the signals that connected it to the anchor; a named-party signal carries the catalog's own role for that party (maker, Collector, Donor, issuing authority, …), not a fixed "maker" label. Matches surface across museums — an NASM aerospace anchor can pull related objects from NMNHPALEO, SAAM, and NMAH. Required: id.
smithsonian_get_media(id)
Return every CC0 (open-access) image for a Smithsonian object at multiple resolutions. The tool never returns an empty list — it names the reason instead: an object with nothing digitized, an object whose media is entirely non-image (scanned books, 3D models, sound recordings), and an object whose images are entirely non-CC0 each fail with their own reason. Each image entry includes thumbnail (~120px), screen-size (~800px), and high-resolution JPEG/TIFF URLs with pixel dimensions. The cc0_only filter on smithsonian_search_objects surfaces objects that have downloadable CC0 images. Required: id.
smithsonian_get_object(id)
Fetch a normalized catalog metadata projection for a Smithsonian object by its record_id (from smithsonian_search_objects results). Returns the exposed catalog fields — title, dates, description, makers, materials, dimensions, places, cultures, topics, exhibitions, credit line, identifiers, rights, and a media summary. The media summary is a count; full image URLs come from smithsonian_get_media. Required: id.
smithsonian_list_terms(rows, field, start, contains)
Enumerate the valid term vocabulary for an indexed Smithsonian filter field (unit_code, culture, place, date, online_media_type, topic). Terms are a controlled vocabulary — often plural or qualified (e.g. "Paintings", not "Painting") — so guessed filter values tend to return nothing. Returns a page of the field's distinct term values; large vocabularies (topic has 133k terms, place 114k) page via start and rows. For unit_code, each code is returned with its museum name and contains matches the name as well as the code, so a museum name resolves to its code in one call. Required: field.
smithsonian_search_objects(rows, query, start, filters)
Recommended first step for open-ended or topic discovery: free-text search across 14.5 million Smithsonian objects, with optional exact filters. Filters narrow by museum unit, object type, indexed date term, culture, geographic place, subject topic, named party, and online/CC0 availability. Returns curated summaries (title, date, museum, thumbnail URL, CC0 flag) with the total match count. The record_id in each result is the identifier for smithsonian_get_object, smithsonian_find_related, and smithsonian_get_media. To browse one exact category — a single museum, culture, date term, object type, or topic — use smithsonian_browse_category instead. Required: query.

Last successful function declaration observed on . Source: https://smithsonian.caseyjhand.com/mcp. We list what the server declared; we do not call any of these functions.

Endpoint status observed on . Source: https://smithsonian.caseyjhand.com/mcp.

Signals

These are separate measurements of different things. They are deliberately not combined into one score, because a popularity number that mixes website traffic with saves and stars cannot be checked or acted on.

Signal Value What it measures Window Observed Source
GitHub stars 1 Number of GitHub accounts that bookmarked this repository since it was created. It is a bookmark count, not installs, not active users and not quality. cumulative, all time GitHub
Last commit 2026-07-30 Date of the most recent push to any branch. This is the strongest cheap indicator of whether the project is still maintained. point in time GitHub
Open issues 0 Open issues plus open pull requests, as GitHub counts them together. A high number can mean an active project or an abandoned one. as of fetch GitHub
Latest published version 0.3.5 Latest version string the maintainer published to the registry. as of fetch Model Context Protocol
Registry record last updated 2026-07-26 When the registry record was last updated by its maintainer. point in time Model Context Protocol
License Apache-2.0 Licence GitHub detected in the repository. Detection can be wrong; the LICENSE file is authoritative. as of fetch GitHub
First listed in the MCP Registry 2026-07-26 Date this server was first published to the official MCP Registry. Not a usage or quality measure. point in time Model Context Protocol
repository status active The repository exists on GitHub and is not archived. This says nothing about how recently it was worked on. as of fetch GitHub
mcp tools declared 6 tools Number of functions the server itself declared when asked to list them. This is what the server offers an agent, not a measure of how well any of them work. as of probe smithsonian.caseyjhand.com
mcp endpoint status ok The server listed 6 functions when asked. as of probe smithsonian.caseyjhand.com

Where to get it

Related, by what their authors tagged them

  • io.github.cyanheads/met-museum-mcp-server — last commit 2026-07-30, shares art, museum, open-access
    MET Museum collection via MCP — 500K+ artworks, metadata, provenance, open-access images.
  • travel.art — last commit 2026-06-21, shares art
    Art-tourism data for AI agents: biennales, art fairs, museums, layover itineraries with 2026 facts.
  • io.github.codex-curator/studiomcphub — last commit 2026-05-14, shares art
    32 creative AI tools (18 free) for agents: generate, upscale, mockup, print, watermark.
  • io.github.cyanheads/pubmed-mcp-server — last commit 2026-07-30, shares cyanheads, open-access
    Search PubMed/Europe PMC, fetch articles and full text (PMC/EPMC/Unpaywall), citations, MeSH terms.
  • io.github.Embassy-of-the-Free-Mind/source-library — last commit 2026-08-08, shares open-access
    Search 22,000+ rare pre-modern texts with AI English translations, summaries, and 73K+ images.
  • Source Library — last commit 2026-08-08, shares open-access
    Search 15K rare pre-modern texts translated to English: philosophy, religion, science, literature.
  • io.github.cyanheads/anime-mcp-server — last commit 2026-07-30, shares cyanheads
    Search anime/manga, franchise watch order, schedule, characters, rankings, studio filmography.
  • io.github.cyanheads/arxiv-mcp-server — last commit 2026-07-27, shares cyanheads
    Search arXiv, fetch paper metadata, and read full-text content.
  • io.github.cyanheads/astronomy-mcp-server — last commit 2026-07-31, shares cyanheads
    Offline observational astronomy: positions, rise/set, moon phases, eclipses, and seasons.
  • io.github.cyanheads/attack-surface-mcp-server — last commit 2026-07-30, shares cyanheads
    Passive external attack-surface mapping: CT subdomains, DNS, TLS, HTTP posture, RDAP/WHOIS, Shodan.

These share tags the maintainers applied themselves, such as art, museum, open-access, cyanheads. Common tags like "mcp" or "ai" are ignored for this: agreeing with six hundred other projects is not a similarity.

This is not a recommendation and not a test result. It is a map of what the authors said their work is about.

Also from cyanheads

How the author describes it

Topics the maintainer set on GitHub: ai-agents, ai-tools, art, cyanheads, mcp, mcp-server, model-context-protocol, museum, open-access, smithsonian, typescript.

This record as data

Every field on this page, with its source and observation date, is in the catalog JSON. Fetch the whole kind at once instead of parsing this HTML.

GET /api/v1/entries/mcp_server.json

Sources

  1. cyanheads/smithsonian-mcp-server on GitHub — GitHub, observed , trust tier 3.
  2. Official MCP Registry — Model Context Protocol, observed , trust tier 1.
  3. Tools declared by the MCP server at https://smithsonian.caseyjhand.com/mcp — smithsonian.caseyjhand.com, observed , trust tier 4.