📚 Open Library Book Scraper

Scrape book data from Open Library — the Internet Archive's open book database with 20M+ books, 10M+ authors, and 40M+ editions. Extract titles, authors, covers, ISBNs, publishers, subjects, ratings, reading stats, and more.

Free API. No key required. No login needed.

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What does this actor do?

This actor fetches structured book data from Open Library's official APIs. It can search books, look up authors, browse subjects, resolve ISBNs, and find trending titles.

Use it to:

• Build book recommendation databases
• Research authors and their complete bibliographies
• Resolve ISBNs to full metadata with cover images
• Browse books by subject (science fiction, history, cooking, etc.)
• Track trending books daily
• Find free full-text books available to read online
• Power bookstore, library, or reading app features

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Scrape modes

Mode	What it does	Required input
Search Books	Keyword search across 20M+ books	query
Search Authors	Find authors by name	author_query
Author's Works	Get all books by an author (via Author ID)	author_query (OL ID)
Browse by Subject	Browse books in a topic category	subject
ISBN Lookup	Resolve ISBNs to full metadata	isbns
Trending	Today's most popular books	None

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Input examples

Example 1: Search for books on machine learning

{
    "scrape_mode": "search",
    "query": "machine learning",
    "max_results": 50,
    "sort_by": "rating"
}

Example 2: Find all works by J.R.R. Tolkien

{
    "scrape_mode": "author_works",
    "author_query": "OL26320A",
    "max_results": 100
}

Tip: Find Author IDs by running "Search Authors" mode first, then use the author_key from the results.

Example 3: Browse science fiction books

{
    "scrape_mode": "subject_browse",
    "subject": "science_fiction",
    "max_results": 50,
    "sort_by": "new"
}

Example 4: Look up books by ISBN

{
    "scrape_mode": "isbn_lookup",
    "isbns": "9780143127550, 0451526538, 9780261103573, 9780062316097"
}

Example 5: Today's trending books

{
    "scrape_mode": "trending",
    "max_results": 30,
    "include_covers": true
}

Example 6: English-only full-text books about philosophy

{
    "scrape_mode": "search",
    "query": "philosophy",
    "search_field": "subject",
    "language": "eng",
    "has_fulltext": true,
    "max_results": 40,
    "sort_by": "rating"
}

---

Output format

Book record (from Search, Subject, Trending)

{
    "rank": 1,
    "type": "book",
    "work_key": "/works/OL27448W",
    "title": "The Lord of the Rings",
    "subtitle": "",
    "authors": ["J. R. R. Tolkien"],
    "author_keys": ["OL26320A"],
    "first_publish_year": 1954,
    "edition_count": 120,
    "ebook_count": 15,
    "has_fulltext": true,
    "isbn": ["9780261103573", "0618640150"],
    "publisher": ["Houghton Mifflin", "Allen & Unwin"],
    "subject": ["Fantasy fiction", "Middle Earth", "Quests"],
    "ratings_average": 4.5,
    "ratings_count": 2847,
    "want_to_read": 15230,
    "already_read": 8456,
    "number_of_pages": 1216,
    "covers": {
        "small": "https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/258027-S.jpg",
        "medium": "https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/258027-M.jpg",
        "large": "https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/258027-L.jpg"
    },
    "open_library_url": "https://openlibrary.org/works/OL27448W"
}

Author record (from Author Search)

{
    "rank": 1,
    "type": "author",
    "author_key": "OL26320A",
    "name": "J.R.R. Tolkien",
    "birth_date": "3 January 1892",
    "death_date": "2 September 1973",
    "top_work": "The Lord of the Rings",
    "work_count": 289,
    "top_subjects": ["Fantasy fiction", "Middle Earth", "Fiction"],
    "photo": {
        "small": "https://covers.openlibrary.org/a/olid/OL26320A-S.jpg",
        "medium": "https://covers.openlibrary.org/a/olid/OL26320A-M.jpg",
        "large": "https://covers.openlibrary.org/a/olid/OL26320A-L.jpg"
    },
    "open_library_url": "https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL26320A"
}

ISBN Lookup record

{
    "rank": 1,
    "type": "book",
    "isbn_queried": "9780143127550",
    "title": "Sapiens",
    "subtitle": "A Brief History of Humankind",
    "authors": ["Yuval Noah Harari"],
    "publishers": ["Harper"],
    "publish_date": "2015",
    "number_of_pages": 443,
    "subjects": ["History", "Civilization", "Human evolution"],
    "isbn_13": ["9780143127550"],
    "goodreads": ["23692271"],
    "covers": {
        "small": "https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/...-S.jpg",
        "medium": "https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/...-M.jpg",
        "large": "https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/...-L.jpg"
    }
}

---

Popular subjects

Use these in subject field (underscores for spaces):

Subject	Code
Science Fiction	science_fiction
Fantasy	fantasy
Mystery	mystery_and_detective_stories
Romance	love
History	history
Biography	biography
Programming	programming
Philosophy	philosophy
Psychology	psychology
Cooking	cooking
Art	art
Music	music
Children's Books	juvenile_fiction
Poetry	poetry

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Cost and performance

Mode	Items	Time	Credits
Search 50 books	50	~5 sec	< $0.01
Author works (100)	100	~8 sec	< $0.01
Subject browse (50)	50	~5 sec	< $0.01
ISBN lookup (10)	10	~3 sec	< $0.01
Trending (30)	30	~3 sec	< $0.01

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Tips

• Search Authors first to get Author IDs, then use those IDs in "Author Works" mode for complete bibliographies.
• Subject codes use underscores for spaces — check the URL on Open Library's subjects page if unsure.
• Cover images come in three sizes: S (small, ~40px), M (medium, ~180px), L (large, ~600px).
• has_fulltext: true filters for books you can actually read online for free via Internet Archive.
• Sort by rating to find the highest-rated books on any topic.
• ISBN lookup accepts both ISBN-10 and ISBN-13 formats, with or without dashes.

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Limitations

• Maximum 500 results per run (Open Library paginates at 100 per page).
• Some older or obscure books may have incomplete metadata.
• Cover images are not available for every book.
• Ratings and reading stats are from Open Library users only (smaller community than Goodreads).
• The API is free but please be respectful — avoid very large batch runs.

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Changelog

v1.0.0 (2026-04-05)

• Initial release
• 6 scrape modes: search, author search, author works, subject browse, ISBN lookup, trending
• Cover image URLs (small/medium/large) for books and author photos
• Language filtering, full-text filtering, and 6 sort options
• Pagination support for large result sets