Open Library

Open Library Authors API

Fetch author records and their works by Open Library Author ID. Supports JSON, YAML, and RDF/XML representations.

GitHub OpenAPI

Operations 1

GET /authors/{authorId}.json Get an author #

Documentation

📖
Documentation
https://openlibrary.org/dev/docs/api/authors

Specifications

⚙
OpenAPI
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/open-library/refs/heads/main/openapi/open-library-authors-api-openapi.yml

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OpenAPI Specification

open-library-authors-api-openapi.yml Raw ↑ 
openapi: 3.2.0
info:
  title: Open Library Authors API
  description: 'Open Library''s public, read-only REST API for searching books, authors,

    and works, retrieving structured records (works, editions, authors,

    subjects), fetching cover images, and pulling recent changes. No

    authentication is required; clients are expected to send a descriptive

    `User-Agent` header to receive a higher per-second rate limit.'
  version: 1.0.0
  contact:
    name: Open Library Developer Documentation
    url: https://openlibrary.org/developers/api
servers:
- url: https://openlibrary.org
  description: Open Library production
- url: https://covers.openlibrary.org
  description: Open Library covers service
tags:
- name: Authors
paths:
  /authors/{authorId}.json:
    get:
      summary: Get an author
      parameters:
      - name: authorId
        in: path
        required: true
        schema:
          type: string
      responses:
        '200':
          $ref: '#/components/responses/Record'
      tags:
      - Authors
      operationId: getAuthors{authorId}Json
      x-operation-id-source: derived
components:
  responses:
    Record:
      description: Open Library JSON record.
      content:
        application/json:
          schema:
            type: object
            additionalProperties: true