Open Library Books Search & ISBN Lookup

Search 30M+ books on Open Library or bulk-lookup ISBNs: title, authors, first publish year, editions, ISBNs, publishers, subjects, page count, ratings, want-to-read count and cover URL.

Why this actor

• Search + ISBN modes, engagement signals (ratings, want-to-read) included.
• Pay only for results: $0.80 per 1,000 books, no start fee, failed lookups are free.
• Robust: automatic retries with exponential backoff, respects Retry-After, per-item error rows instead of crashed runs.
• Clean, flat JSON/CSV/Excel output ready for Google Sheets, Make, Zapier, n8n, Clay, or the Apify API.

Use cases

• Bookstore and library catalog enrichment
• Publishing market research
• Reading-list and recommendation apps
• Cover images for listings

Input

Field	Type	Description
queries	array	Title, author or subject, e.g. 'climate change', 'author:Tolkien'.
isbns	array	ISBN-10 or ISBN-13 for bulk metadata lookup.
sort	string	Empty = relevance.
maxPerQuery	integer	Cap.
maxItems	integer	0 = no limit. Caps cost.

Example input:

{
  "queries": [
    "web scraping"
  ],
  "isbns": [
    "9780140328721"
  ],
  "maxPerQuery": 10
}

Output

Each dataset item looks like this (real sample from a test run, long fields trimmed):

{
  "query": "web scraping",
  "workKey": "/works/OL17308344W",
  "url": "https://openlibrary.org/works/OL17308344W",
  "title": "Web Scraping with Python",
  "subtitle": "Collecting Data from the Modern Web",
  "authors": [
    "Ryan Mitchell"
  ],
  "firstPublishYear": 2015,
  "editionCount": 5,
  "isbns": [
    "1491910275",
    "1491910291",
    "1491910267",
    "\u2026"
  ],
  "publishers": [
    "O'Reilly Media, Incorporated",
    "O'Reilly Media",
    "O\u2019Reilly Media"
  ],
  "languages": [
    "eng"
  ],
  "subjects": [
    "Python (Computer program language)",
    "Automatic data collection systems",
    "Data mining",
    "\u2026"
  ],
  "pagesMedian": 256,
  "ratingAvg": null,
  "ratingsCount": null,
  "wantToRead": 18,
  "coverUrl": "https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/7387255-L.jpg",
  "borrowableScan": true,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-14T16:21:17+00:00"
}

Rows that could not be processed contain an error field and are not charged.

Pricing

Pay-per-event: $0.0008 per book (= $0.80 / 1,000). Use Max results to cap spend. Apify's free plan credit covers thousands of results per month.

Integrations & API

Run on a schedule in Apify Console, call via the Apify API / Python & JS clients, or connect to Make, Zapier, n8n, Google Sheets, Slack and webhooks. Works as a tool for AI agents via Apify MCP.

FAQ

Is this an official tool? No. It is an independent actor and is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by the data source or any trademark owner named here.

Is it legal? The actor only reads publicly available data from public endpoints, without logins, and does not bypass paywalls or access controls. You are responsible for using the data in line with applicable laws (e.g. GDPR) and the source sites' terms.

Something broke? Open an issue in the Issues tab; we typically respond within 24 hours and ship fixes fast.