Columbia University

---
aid: columbia
name: Columbia University
description: >-
  Columbia University is a private Ivy League research university in New York City,
  ranked #18 in the QS World University Rankings 2025. Its public developer and API
  footprint is modest and largely gated: the central Open Data Service publishes
  programming-friendly JSON/XML data feeds (course directory, CLIO library catalog,
  building access, and more) that require a Columbia UNI login, while Columbia
  University Libraries offers the CLIO catalog as open MARCXML bulk data under CC0.
  Identity and access integration is provided via CAS and a Shibboleth/SAML 2.0
  Identity Provider participating in the InCommon Federation. Source code is published
  across the cul (Libraries) and columbia-it (CUIT) GitHub organizations.
type: Index
position: Consumer
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-productions.s3.amazonaws.com/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/columbia/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
tags:
  - Education
  - Higher Education
  - University
  - Open Data
  - Library
  - Identity
  - United States
created: '2026-06-03'
modified: '2026-06-03'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
  - aid: columbia:opendata
    name: Columbia Open Data Service
    description: >-
      Central university service publishing data feeds to software developers in
      programming-friendly formats such as JSON and XML (including the course
      directory, CLIO library catalog, and building access feeds). Access is gated:
      any member of the University community may log in with their UNI to consume the
      feeds. Feed pages document refresh schedules, data diagrams, and table/element
      documentation.
    humanURL: https://opendataservice.columbia.edu/
    tags: [ Open Data, Data Feeds, JSON, XML, Gated ]
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://opendataservice.columbia.edu/about
  - aid: columbia:clio-opendata
    name: CLIO Library Catalog Open Data
    description: >-
      Columbia University Libraries publishes its catalog (bibliographic and holdings
      data from the Integrated Library System behind CLIO) as open MARCXML bulk
      extracts, updated monthly and released under a CC0 1.0 Public Domain
      Designation. Covers books, serials, music, video, manuscripts and more;
      excludes Law Library and ReCAP partner records.
    humanURL: https://library.columbia.edu/bts/clio-data.html
    baseURL: https://lito.cul.columbia.edu/extracts/ColumbiaLibraryCatalog/full/
    tags: [ Library, Catalog, MARCXML, Open Data, Bulk Download ]
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://library.columbia.edu/bts/clio-data.html
      - type: GitHub
        url: https://github.com/cul/clio-spectrum
  - aid: columbia:directory-of-classes
    name: CU Directory of Classes
    description: >-
      Public web directory of Columbia University class offerings, browsable by
      subject, department, semester, instruction method, weekday and start time. No
      official documented API or JSON feed is published; the service points users to
      Vergil Course Search for authoritative course data. An unofficial third-party
      project (soid/columbia-catalog-data) crawls this directory and republishes it
      as JSON/CSV.
    humanURL: https://doc.sis.columbia.edu/
    tags: [ Courses, Catalog, Directory, Unofficial ]
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://doc.sis.columbia.edu/
      - type: GitHub
        url: https://github.com/soid/columbia-catalog-data
  - aid: columbia:identity
    name: Columbia Identity (CAS / Shibboleth SAML)
    description: >-
      Columbia University Information Technology (CUIT) provides UNI-based web
      authentication and federation. CAS (Central Authentication Service) supports
      browser-based single sign-on and MFA, while the Shibboleth Identity Provider
      supports SAML 2.0 single sign-on and participates in the InCommon Federation,
      serving roughly 50 integrated applications.
    humanURL: https://www.cuit.columbia.edu/web-authentication-federation
    tags: [ Identity, Authentication, SAML, CAS, Shibboleth, SSO ]
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://www.cuit.columbia.edu/shibboleth
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://www.cuit.columbia.edu/cas-authentication
      - type: SignUp
        url: https://www.cuit.columbia.edu/cas-authentication/registration
common:
  - type: Website
    url: https://www.columbia.edu/
  - type: DeveloperPortal
    url: https://opendataservice.columbia.edu/
  - type: GitHub
    url: https://github.com/cul
  - type: GitHub
    url: https://github.com/columbia-it
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://www.cuit.columbia.edu/web-authentication-federation
  - type: LinkedIn
    url: https://www.linkedin.com/school/columbia-university/
  - type: Plans
    url: plans/columbia-plans-pricing.yml
  - type: RateLimits
    url: rate-limits/columbia-rate-limits.yml
  - type: FinOps
    url: finops/columbia-finops.yml
  - type: Review
    url: review.yml
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: [email protected]