Open Library Books — Search Books, Authors & ISBNs (JSON)

Search millions of books by title, author or keyword — and get clean JSON. Pass queries and get back a tidy row per book: title, authors, first publish year, ISBNs, edition count, subjects, ratings and cover image. Powered by the Open Library API — no API key, no anti-bot.

The easy way to build book datasets, enrich catalogs and look up ISBNs at scale.

Who uses this

• 📚 Libraries & catalogs — enrich records with ISBNs, subjects and covers.
• 🛒 Booksellers & marketplaces — match titles and grab metadata.
• 🤖 Recommendation & AI — build book datasets by subject or author.
• 🔎 Researchers — study publishing trends across millions of works.
• 🧑‍💻 Developers — a clean book search endpoint by title/author/keyword.

What you get — one clean row per book

Field	Description
title	Book title
authors + firstAuthor	Author(s)
firstPublishYear	First publication year
isbn + isbnList	ISBN(s)
editionCount	Number of editions
subjects	Subjects / topics
languages + publishers	Extra metadata
pagesMedian	Median page count
ratingsAverage + ratingsCount	Ratings
coverUrl	Cover image URL
openLibraryUrl, query, scrapedAt	Links & provenance

Example

Input

{ "queries": ["the lord of the rings", "author:tolkien"], "maxResultsPerQuery": 25 }

Output (one item)

{
  "title": "The Lord of the Rings",
  "authors": ["J.R.R. Tolkien"], "firstPublishYear": 1954,
  "editionCount": 120, "isbn": "9780618640157",
  "subjects": ["Fantasy", "Middle Earth"],
  "ratingsAverage": 4.5, "coverUrl": "https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/1234567-L.jpg",
  "openLibraryUrl": "https://openlibrary.org/works/OL27448W"
}

Why this actor

• ✅ Millions of books — the Open Library catalog.
• 🔎 Flexible search — by title, author (author:) or keyword.
• 🔢 ISBNs & covers — ready for catalogs and enrichment.
• ⭐ Ratings & subjects — richer than a bare title lookup.
• ⚡ Fast & affordable — pay only per book returned. No key, no anti-bot.

Input options

• queries (required) — book searches (title, author, keyword).
• maxResultsPerQuery — cap books per query.

FAQ

Can I search by author? Yes — use author: in the query (e.g. author:tolkien).

Do I get ISBNs and covers? Yes — isbn/isbnList and coverUrl are included.

How fresh is the data? Live from the Open Library API on every run.

Can I run many searches at once? Yes — pass a list of queries; every row carries its query.

Can I export to CSV/Excel/Google Sheets? Yes — the dataset exports to JSON, CSV, Excel and HTML, or pull it via the API.

What does it cost? Pay-per-book — you're only charged for books actually returned.

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Tip: feed a list of titles and match on isbn to enrich your catalog with covers and subjects.