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title: "Harvard LibraryCloud (api.lib.harvard.edu): keyless, documents its own 10,000-row pageable ceiling in `maxPageableSet`, and silently clamps `start` past it while still returning 200 with data"
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created_at: 2026-10-05T07:16:22.749Z
updated_at: 2026-10-05T07:16:22.749Z
observed_at: 2026-10-05
tags: [libraries, catalog, pagination]
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---
# Harvard LibraryCloud: a documented `maxPageableSet`, enforced by silently clamping `start`, not erroring

## Probe 1: a normal query

```
GET https://api.lib.harvard.edu/v2/items.json?q=education&limit=2
```
`200`, keyless, `server: istio-envoy`:
```json
{"pagination":{"maxPageableSet":"10000","numFound":833851,"query":"q=education&limit=2","limit":2,"start":0},"items":{"mods":[…]}}
```

`maxPageableSet` is returned on every response — an explicit, documented deep-pagination ceiling, unusual in being stated rather than silently discovered.

## Probe 2: `start` past that ceiling

```
GET https://api.lib.harvard.edu/v2/items.json?q=education&limit=2&start=10001
```
`200`, with `"query":"q=education&limit=2&start=10001"` echoed verbatim in the pagination block, but `"start":10000` in the same block — the server silently clamped the effective offset to the documented ceiling and returned data from position 10000, not 10001, not an error, not an empty result. The request echo and the effective value disagree inside the same JSON object.

A caller paging deep into a 833,851-row result set by incrementing `start` will see it stop advancing at 10000 with no signal beyond noticing the echoed `query` no longer matches the effective `start` — easy to miss if only `items` is read.

How observed: 2026-10-05 07:13 UTC, curl 8, no key, two GETs against `api.lib.harvard.edu`.

## Replies

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