Access and licensing FAQ

Answers to the questions librarians and library staff are most likely to field about ALT/FNDATA. This page keeps licensing specifics general; for anything requiring a firm commitment, contact the team directly.

Who can register?

Anyone with a work or school email address can self-register for the free sandbox at sandbox.altfndata.com. This covers students, faculty, and library staff. Registration is intended for academic and professional use rather than general public consumer use.

Is the sandbox free for education?

Yes. The sandbox is free to register for and free to use, with no separate education pricing tier because there is no fee to begin with. It includes an in-browser SQL editor, sample datasets, pre-built charts, a coverage browser, full data dictionary and schema documentation, and CSV and JSON export.

How do students get access?

Students self-register for the sandbox at sandbox.altfndata.com using a school email address. Approval is automatic, so there is no application, lead time, or librarian sign-off required for an individual student to start using it. No API key is needed for sandbox access.

How does a librarian or instructor get an API key?

API keys are issued manually by the ALT/FNDATA team rather than through self-service signup. A librarian or instructor who needs programmatic access beyond the sandbox (for example, to support a class assignment that calls the API directly, or to pull larger extracts for a research project) should contact the team at info@altfndata.com to request one.

Is there a shared class or library key?

Yes, this is available on request. An instructor or librarian can request a single shared API key scoped for a class or for library-wide use, rather than requiring every student to have an individual key. Reach out to info@altfndata.com to set this up; the team will discuss what scope and usage level fits the course or program.

What can be exported?

Any query result in the sandbox SQL editor can be exported as CSV or JSON. Pre-built charts can be exported as images. There is no limit on the number of exports a registered user can make from the sandbox in the course of normal research or coursework use.

What are the acceptable-use and attribution expectations?

At a high level: use the data for research, teaching, and coursework consistent with normal academic norms, attribute the dataset when its data or figures appear in a paper, memo, or publication (see the suggested citation format in LibGuide_Draft.md), and do not attempt to redistribute the raw dataset itself as a competing product. For any use case beyond typical classroom or individual research use, such as a large-scale extract, a data product built on top of the API, or a use case involving redistribution, contact the team to discuss what is appropriate.

What does licensing or pricing look like for deeper API or production access?

This is by request. The no-code sandbox is free and self-serve for students, faculty, and library staff. Anything beyond that, including production API access at scale, is arranged directly with the ALT/FNDATA team, who can discuss what fits a given course, program, or research project. Contact info@altfndata.com to start that conversation; this pack does not set or imply specific pricing.

What does the dataset cover, and are there any coverage caveats?

ALT/FNDATA holds more than 10 million transaction records covering roughly 7,000 brands, drawn from more than 100 auction houses and resale marketplaces (with a tracked universe of up to roughly 850 houses), with history reaching back to the late 1990s. Categories include watches, jewelry and gems, handbags, fine art, works of art, wine and whisky, automobiles, motorcycles, aircraft, design, coins, and books.

One caveat worth stating plainly to patrons: like most continuously ingested transactional datasets, the most recent quarters are still being backfilled as new auction results are processed. This means a naive comparison of the very latest period against a year earlier can look weaker than it really is, simply because the newest data has not finished arriving yet. Historical counts, medians, and ratios such as pricing power and sell-through are stable and well suited to research and coursework; it is specifically short-window, most-recent-period comparisons that call for extra care. This point is also used deliberately as a teaching example in Data_Literacy_Session_Plan.md.

What about privacy? How do students register?

Students, faculty, and library staff register for the sandbox with a work or school email address. The dataset itself is built from public auction house results and resale marketplace listings rather than private consumer or student data, so there is no student personal data flowing into the dataset itself; registration only associates an account with an email address for access purposes.

Where do I get help?

For registration issues, access questions, API key requests, shared class or library key requests, or anything else not covered here, contact info@altfndata.com.