Open Library Book Intelligence

Extract book metadata, author information, and publication data from Open Library's 20M+ book catalog. Search by title, author, subject, ISBN, or keywords. Get covers, ratings, and availability.

What you get

• 26 structured fields per record — already_read_count, author_keys, authors, cover_id, cover_url, currently_reading_count, ebook_access, edition_count…
• Clean, validated JSON ready for your pipeline
• Pre-built dataset Overview in the Apify Console for instant inspection
• Reliable & maintained — patched whenever the source changes

Why this actor (vs. alternatives)

	Build your own	Generic scraper	This actor
Maintenance	You patch every change	Often broken	Patched continuously
Structured output	Manual parsing	Inconsistent	Validated schema
Setup time	Days	Hours	Minutes
Pay only for results	N/A	Varies	Yes (pay-per-use)

Input

Field	Type	Description
mode (required)	string	How to search for books Options: search, by_isbn, by_subject, authors
query	string	General search query (searches title, author, subject, etc.)
title	string	Search by book title
author	string	Search by author name
subject	string	Filter by subject (e.g., science_fiction, mystery, biography)
language	string	Filter by language code (e.g., eng, spa, fra, deu)
isbns	array	List of ISBNs to look up (ISBN-10 or ISBN-13)
maxResults	integer	Maximum number of books to return

Example Input

{
  "mode": "search",
  "maxResults": 100
}

Output (sample)

{
  "key": "/works/OL1168083W",
  "title": "Nineteen Eighty-Four",
  "subtitle": null,
  "authors": [
    "George Orwell"
  ],
  "author_keys": [
    "OL118077A"
  ],
  "first_publish_year": 1949,
  "edition_count": 535,
  "ebook_access": "borrowable",
  "has_fulltext": true,
  "cover_id": 9267242,
  "cover_url": "https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/9267242-M.jpg",
  "isbn": [],
  "languages": [
    "ger",
    "pol",
    "spa",
    "cat",
    "jpn",
    "rum",
    "urd",
    "dut",
    "gre",
    "eng",
    "tur",
    "ind",
    "per",
    "swe",
    "por",
    "rus",
    "chi",
    "ukr",
    "nor",
    "ita",
    "ara",
    "fre"
  ],
  "subjects": [],
  "publishers": [],
  "publish_places": [],
  "number_of_pages_median": null,
  "ratings_average": null
}

Use cases

• Content / catalog apps — populate listings with rich metadata
• AI assistants — ground LLM responses in real reference data
• Education platforms — teach with structured real-world data
• Research — analyze trends across the dataset
• Recommendation engines — power suggestions with metadata

Pricing

Pay-Per-Event:

• $0.001 per result
• $0.00005 actor-start fee

Example runs

Use case	Results	Cost
Quick scan	100	$0.10
Standard run	500	$0.50
Bulk dataset	2,000	$2.00

FAQ

Q: How fresh is the data?
A: Real-time — every run fetches live from the source.

Q: Do I pay for failed or empty runs?
A: You pay per result returned, plus a tiny actor-start fee.

Q: Can I schedule recurring runs?
A: Yes — use the Apify Console scheduler for daily/weekly automation.

Q: Can I export the data?
A: Yes — JSON, CSV, Excel, and API access are all supported by Apify.

Related actors

• openlibrary-book-intelligence — Open Library books
• recipe-intelligence — recipe database
• cocktail-intelligence — cocktail recipes
• art-museum-intelligence — museum art collections

Legal & compliance

This actor retrieves publicly accessible data only. You are responsible for respecting the source's Terms of Service, honoring robots.txt, and complying with GDPR / applicable regulations for any personal data.

Support & feature requests

Open an issue on the Actor page or contact via Apify Console messaging. Custom features welcome.