Open Library

Open Library Search API

Search Open Library's catalog of books, authors, lists, and subjects. Returns JSON results for full-text and faceted queries, with options for pagination, field selection, and language filtering.

Documentation GitHub OpenAPI

Operations 2

0 of 2 operations are conformant: apis.io called them with no credentials and the responses matched this contract; 1 more answered but could not be checked against a schema. Checked 2026-11-12. how this works · status file

GET /search/authors.json Search authors observed #

GET /search/inside Full-text search inside books #

Documentation

📖

Documentation

https://openlibrary.org/dev/docs/api/search

Specifications

⚙

OpenAPI

https://artifacts.apis.io/open-library/openapi/open-library-search-api-openapi.yml

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OpenAPI Specification

openapi: 3.2.0
info:
  title: Open Library Search 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: Search
paths:
  /search/authors.json:
    get:
      summary: Search authors
      parameters:
      - name: q
        in: query
        schema:
          type: string
      responses:
        '200':
          $ref: '#/components/responses/SearchResults'
      tags:
      - Search
      operationId: getSearchAuthorsJson
      x-operation-id-source: derived
  /search/inside:
    get:
      summary: Full-text search inside books
      parameters:
      - name: q
        in: query
        schema:
          type: string
      responses:
        '200':
          $ref: '#/components/responses/SearchResults'
      tags:
      - Search
      operationId: getSearchInside
      x-operation-id-source: derived
components:
  responses:
    SearchResults:
      description: Paginated search results.
      content:
        application/json:
          schema:
            type: object
            properties:
              start:
                type: integer
              num_found:
                type: integer
              docs:
                type: array
                items:
                  type: object
                  additionalProperties: true