smeet666/mcp-libraryofcongress

Overview

MCP server for the Library of Congress. It searches scanned newspapers, browses the catalogue, and reads records. No API key is required.

Best for

Best for
Developers who need Library of Congress data in MCP tools without managing an API key

Use cases

• Search historical scanned newspapers
• Browse Library of Congress catalogue entries
• Read bibliographic records in an MCP client

How to use

Install

claude mcp add libraryofcongress -- npx -y mcp-libraryofcongress

Tools exposed

• search_newspapers
• search_items
• get_item
• list_collections
• year_from
• year_to
• max_excerpt_chars
• max_excerpts_per_match
• media_type
• online_only
• max_description_chars
• searchable_only
• LOC_USER_AGENT
• LOC_MIN_INTERVAL_MS
• LOC_TIMEOUT_MS
• LOC_NEWSPAPER_TIMEOUT_MS
• LOC_MAX_RETRIES
• LOC_CACHE_TTL_MS
• LOC_CACHE_MAX_ENTRIES
• LOC_LOG_LEVEL

Tested with

Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code

Notes

MCP server for the Library of Congress. It searches scanned newspapers, browses the catalogue, and reads records. No API key is required.

0 stars on GitHub. Last updated 2026-09-16. Licensed MIT.

Use cases

• Search historical scanned newspapers
• Browse Library of Congress catalogue entries
• Read bibliographic records in an MCP client

Pros

• No API key needed
• Covers newspapers, catalogue, and records in one server
• Open source on GitHub

Cons

• Zero stars, so little community validation
• Vendor listed as Various, making maintenance unclear
• Limited to Library of Congress data

Indexed from awesome-mcp-servers-punkpeye and enriched against its public facts.