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Open Library — independent third-party profile of a public API surface, by API Evangelist. Open Library offers a suite of APIs to help developers get up and running with its data. This includes RESTful APIs that make Open Library data available in JSON, YAML, and RDF/XML formats, plus a Search Inside full-text search service, cover image endpoints,

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Open Library (open-library)

About this repository

This is not our API. This repository is an independent, third-party profile of a company's publicly available API surface, maintained by API Evangelist. API Evangelist does not operate, host, resell, or support this company's APIs, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the company unless stated on the profile.

Where the information came from. Everything here is assembled from material a member of the public can reach with a browser and no credentials — the company's own website, developer portal and documentation, the specifications it publishes for public use (OpenAPI, AsyncAPI, JSON Schema, apis.json, llms.txt and similar), its public repositories, and its public status, pricing and changelog pages. Nothing here is obtained by breaching a system, defeating an access control, or using credentials of any kind.

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Full detail: Where this data comes from

Open Library offers a suite of APIs to help developers get up and running with its data. This includes RESTful APIs that make Open Library data available in JSON, YAML, and RDF/XML formats, plus a Search Inside full-text search service, cover image endpoints, and read-protocol library lookup APIs. Most resources also expose machine-readable representations by appending .json, .yml, or .rdf to any Open Library URL.

APIs.json: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/open-library/refs/heads/main/apis.yml

Scope

  • Type: Index
  • Position: Consumer
  • Access: 3rd-Party

Tags

  • Authors
  • Books
  • Catalog
  • Covers
  • Libraries
  • Open Data
  • Reading Lists
  • Search
  • Subjects

Timestamps

  • Created: 2025-02-06
  • Modified: 2026-04-28

APIs

Open Library Search API

Search Open Library's catalog of books, authors, lists, and subjects. Returns JSON results for full-text and faceted queries, with options for pagination, field selection, and language filtering.

Tags

  • Books
  • Catalog
  • Search

Properties

Open Library Search Inside API

Full-text search across the millions of digitized books in the Internet Archive's collection, returning matching passages and book identifiers.

Tags

  • Books
  • Full Text
  • Search

Properties

Open Library Works API

Retrieve work-level records (the abstract concept of a book independent of edition) by Open Library Work ID. Returns JSON, YAML, or RDF/XML.

Tags

  • Books
  • Catalog
  • Works

Properties

Open Library Editions API

Retrieve edition-level records (specific printings, ISBNs, formats) by Open Library Edition ID, ISBN-10, ISBN-13, OCLC, or LCCN.

Tags

  • Books
  • Catalog
  • Editions
  • ISBN

Properties

Open Library Authors API

Fetch author records and their works by Open Library Author ID. Supports JSON, YAML, and RDF/XML representations.

Tags

  • Authors
  • Catalog

Properties

Open Library Subjects API

Retrieve books, works, and metadata grouped by subject (genre, topic, place, time, person) with paging and faceting.

Tags

  • Catalog
  • Subjects
  • Taxonomy

Properties

Open Library Covers API

Retrieve book and author cover images by Open Library ID, ISBN, OCLC, LCCN, or Goodreads ID, in small, medium, and large sizes.

Tags

  • Covers
  • Images
  • Media

Properties

Open Library Lists API

Read and manage user-curated reading lists. Authenticated patrons can create lists and add or remove works, editions, and subjects.

Tags

  • Lists
  • Reading Lists
  • User Data

Properties

Open Library My Books API

Access a patron's public reading log: Want to Read, Currently Reading, and Already Read shelves for a given Open Library account.

Tags

  • Reading Log
  • User Data

Properties

Open Library Recent Changes API

Stream recent edits across the Open Library catalog including works, editions, authors, lists, and subjects, with filtering by kind and time range.

Tags

  • Activity
  • Changes
  • Feed

Properties

Open Library Read API

Legacy partner API that returns availability and read URLs for books matched by ISBN, OCLC, LCCN, or OLID identifiers across libraries and the Internet Archive.

Tags

  • Availability
  • Libraries
  • Lookup

Properties

Common Properties

Maintainers

FN: Kin Lane Email: kin@apievangelist.com

About

Open Library — independent third-party profile of a public API surface, by API Evangelist. Open Library offers a suite of APIs to help developers get up and running with its data. This includes RESTful APIs that make Open Library data available in JSON, YAML, and RDF/XML formats, plus a Search Inside full-text search service, cover image endpoints,

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2 watching

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