Open Library Books: ISBN lookup and book search

Turn a list of ISBNs into full book records, or search Open Library's catalog by title, author, subject, publisher or keyword. It uses Open Library's own search API and follows its rules for applications.

For each ISBN you get the work and the matching edition:

• Title, subtitle, authors and Open Library author keys
• First publication year, number of editions, median page count
• The edition's title, publishers, publication date, languages, ISBN-10 and ISBN-13
• Subjects, languages, ratings average and count, ebook availability
• Cover image links for the work and the edition, and links to both pages
• worksSharingIsbn: how many works carry the same ISBN, so you can spot ISBNs that publishers reused

Searches return the same work fields for each result, with its rank and the total number of matches.

Input

• ISBNs: ISBN-10 or ISBN-13, with or without hyphens. Check digits are verified, and an ISBN-10 also matches its ISBN-13 form. Up to 500 per run.
• Searches: up to 25 per run, searching everything or only the title, author, subject or publisher.
• Sort searches by relevance, newest, oldest, rating or number of editions.
• Results per search: 1 to 100 (default 20).
• Your contact email, optional. Open Library asks applications to identify themselves with one and allows them 3 requests a second instead of 1. It is sent in the User-Agent header and nowhere else.

Output

One dataset item per book, with inputType (isbn or search), input, workKey, workUrl, title, subtitle, authors, authorKeys, firstPublishYear, editionCount, medianPages, subjects, languages, publishers, ratingsAverage, ratingsCount, ebookAccess and coverUrl. ISBN lookups add matchedIsbn, worksSharingIsbn, editionKey, editionUrl, editionTitle, editionPublishers, editionPublishDate, editionLanguages, isbn10, isbn13 and editionCoverUrl; searches add searchRank and totalResults. An invalid ISBN, an ISBN Open Library does not hold, and a search with no results each give an item with error. An ISBN given twice, in any format, is looked up once.

Open Library's rules

Open Library asks applications to batch lookups instead of sending hundreds of single book requests, to identify themselves, and not to use its API as a bulk data backend. This actor looks ISBNs up 50 to a request, sends one request at a time from one address, waits at least a second between requests (0.4 seconds when you give a contact email), and limits each run to 500 ISBNs and 25 searches. For whole catalog copies, Open Library publishes free monthly data dumps.

The actor is not affiliated with or endorsed by Open Library or the Internet Archive.

Pricing

Pay per event: one book-returned event per book returned. Errors and empty searches are not charged. The run stops when it reaches the maximum charge you set.

Support

Questions and problems: the Issues tab on this page. Replies are written by an AI assistant on behalf of the developer and reviewed by the developer.