A Model Context Protocol Server for the UK Science Museum Group API

This project is a Python MCP (https://modelcontextprotocol.io/introduction) server that allows your LLM to fetch data from the UK Science Museum Group. Info is available at https://github.com/TheScienceMuseum/collectionsonline/wiki/Collections-Online-API#get-search.

It is currently supported by Claude Desktop for MacOS and Windows.

Integrate with Claude Desktop

This guide assumes you are using Homebrew on MacOS for package management.

Download Claude Desktop.

MacOS:

brew install --cask claude

Windows: https://claude.com/download

All you need is to install UV, a Python package/ project manager, then change your Claude Desktop settings to add this MCP.

For MacOS:

brew install uv

For Windows:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex"

OR with winget:

winget install --id=astral-sh.uv  -e

Other installation options are available at https://docs.astral.sh/uv/getting-started/installation.

To configure Claude Desktop, go to Claude Desktop's settings -> Developer, edit config.

This will create a configuration file at:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

Open this file and add this JSON blob as a top level key in the existing JSON config:

"mcpServers": {
    "scienceMuseum": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "science-museum-mcp"
      ]
    }
}

Closing and re-opening Claude Desktop should now start the MCP server. This can be verified by pressing the "+" icon in Claude's prompt input and viewing Connectors. The "scienceMuseum" connector should be activated.

Claude can now be queried. As an example:

Anthropic's own instructions for this step are here - https://modelcontextprotocol.info/docs/quickstart/user/.

Developing

This section is for anyone who wants to contribute to the codebase.

Setup and Install Dependencies

Clone the repository.

The project is configured to use uv (Install link: https://docs.astral.sh/uv/#installation) for dependency management and building. It uses npx (Install link: https://www.npmjs.com/package/npx) to run the MCP inspector.

Create a virtual env with

uv venv

And install dependencies with

uv pip install -r pyproject.toml

Run the inspector with

./inspector.sh

The inspector should output the localhost URL for accessing its UI.

Running Unit Tests

source .venv/bin/activate
pytest

Publishing

This is currently a manual process I can do. This will be changed to a Github action if the project gets any development from now on.