Open Library Scraper — Books & ISBN Data

Search the full Open Library catalogue for books and look up editions by ISBN — with community ratings, subjects, cover images and cross-IDs. By query, title, author, subject or ISBN. Free, keyless, no proxies.

Google Books blocks keyless requests from datacenter IPs — this actor wins the no-key book-data niche with a full search surface plus direct ISBN edition lookup.

What you get

Works (from search) — one row per work:

• title, authors, firstPublishYear, editionCount
• Ratings — ratingsAverage, ratingsCount (community reading-log data)
• pagesMedian, subjects (up to 20), isbns (up to 5), publishers, languages
• firstSentence, coverUrl (large cover image), Open Library url and key

Editions (from ISBN lookup) — one row per edition:

• isbn, title, subtitle, authors (refs), publishers, publishDate
• numberOfPages, isbn10, isbn13, languages, subjects, coverUrl, url, key

Every row carries a type field (work or edition) so mixed runs are easy to split.

Output sample

Work (search result):

{
  "type": "work",
  "key": "/works/OL1917071W",
  "title": "Clean Code",
  "authors": ["Robert C. Martin"],
  "firstPublishYear": 2008,
  "editionCount": 18,
  "ratingsAverage": 4.12,
  "ratingsCount": 176,
  "pagesMedian": 431,
  "subjects": ["Computer programming", "Software engineering"],
  "isbns": ["9780132350884", "0132350882"],
  "publishers": ["Prentice Hall"],
  "languages": ["eng"],
  "firstSentence": "You are reading this book for two reasons.",
  "coverUrl": "https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/8479576-L.jpg",
  "url": "https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1917071W"
}

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
query	string	clean code	Free-text search across title, author, etc.
title	string	—	Search within titles
author	string	—	Search by author name
subject	string	—	Browse by subject/genre (e.g. science_fiction)
language	string	—	3-letter language code (eng, fre, ger)
sort	string	—	rating, new, old, editions, readinglog (empty = relevance)
isbns	array	—	ISBN-10/13 for direct edition lookup
maxResults	integer	100	Cap on works returned from search

Provide a search (query/title/author/subject) or isbns.

Example input

{
  "subject": "science_fiction",
  "sort": "rating",
  "maxResults": 100
}

ISBN enrichment:

{ "isbns": ["9780132350884", "9780201616224"] }

Why this actor

• Keyless where Google Books isn't — Open Library's open API, no key, no datacenter-IP blocks.
• Full search surface — title, author, subject, language and sort in one actor.
• Ratings + covers + ISBNs — community ratings and large cover URLs, plus ISBN edition lookup for catalog matching.
• Reliable — auto-retry and pagination up to your maxResults.

Pricing

Pay per result — $1.50 per 1,000 results (one work or edition = one result). No subscription or platform fees.

Related actors

• Google Books Scraper — books, ISBNs and prices via the Google Books API (bring your own key).
• CrossRef Scholarly Works Scraper — academic works and citations.
• Discogs Scraper — music releases, vinyl and price data.

Notes

• Data is Open Library's free public API; the actor sets a descriptive User-Agent and retries on 429/5xx.
• Field completeness depends on contributors — popular titles are rich; obscure ones may miss ratings or covers.
• Edition authors and languages are Open Library key refs (e.g. /authors/OL...A), not plain names.
• This actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Internet Archive / Open Library.