Public Notices

What Are Public Notices?

Public notices are a legally mandated form of print disclosure that are shared in newspapers across the world. These notices provide information about government actions, legal proceedings, and other important events that are of public interest. Public notices can include things like RFP notices, which provide information about government procurement processes and allow qualified vendors to submit proposals for goods, services, or construction projects. Public notices can also include things like notice of public meetings, tax sales, and zoning changes.

At Column, we have worked with press associations to create the first ever publicly accessible API for public notice data. This API allows users to easily access and search public notice information from a variety of sources, including local newspapers and government websites. By providing a centralized, easily accessible source for public notice information, we are helping to ensure that the public has the information it needs to stay informed about important events and decisions that impact their communities.

Accessing Data

Access is currently segmented by state. For example, to access notices in California, you would use the endpoint https://utility.column.us/v1/california/public_notices

Access follows standard REST guidelines as outlined below. All examples below show how to access public notice data and are also available as an example in the following Google Collab notebook.

Listing records

curl --request GET \
  --url 'https://utility.column.us/v1/colorado/public_notices' \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN'

Paginating Responses

Column’s API supports pagination by offset as well as by cursor.

Paginating by offset

# use the page parameter to get the next batch of results
curl --request GET \
  --url 'https://utility.column.us/v1/colorado/public_notices?page=1' \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN'

Paginating by cursor

# use the starting_after parameter to get results after the document with ID 12345
curl --request GET \
  --url 'https://utility.column.us/v1/colorado/public_notices?starting_after=12345' \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN'

# use the ending_before parameter to get results before the document with ID 12345
curl --request GET \
  --url 'https://utility.column.us/v1/colorado/public_notices?ending_before=12345' \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN'

Getting the details of a record

curl --request GET \
  --url 'https://utility.column.us/v1/colorado/public_notices/1' \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN'

Filtering records with query parameters

curl --request GET \
  --url 'https://utiity.column.us/v1/colorado/public_notices?county=Douglas%20County' \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN'

Running text search against record contents

Fields available for text search are detailed in the schema below with column “searchable.”

curl --request GET \
  --url 'https://utility.column.us/v1/colorado/public_notices?search=RFP' \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN'

Understanding API Responses

Successful API calls will return a JSON object with relevant data inside of a data field. When listing data, results will be in an array. When running a detail requests, the field will directly contain a JSON object. Here is a sample response of a detail call to the public notices table.

{
  "data": {
      "paper_name": "Parker Chronicle",
			"county": "Douglas County",
			"state": "Colorado",
			"date": "2022-07-14",
			"text": "Legal Notice No. 2022-0063\nFirst Publication: June 30, 2022\nLast Publication: July 28, 2022...",
			"id": "12345"
	}

Bulk Data Delivery

For questions surrounding bulk data delivery or notice data in multiple states please contact [email protected] with the headline “Accessing Bulk Data.”