# Open Library

**Canonical:** https://apis.io/providers/open-library/  
**Website:** https://openlibrary.org/  
**APIs profiled:** 19

Open Library offers a suite of APIs to help developers get up and running with its data. This includes RESTful APIs that make Open Library data available in JSON, YAML, and RDF/XML formats, plus a Search Inside full-text search service, cover image endpoints, and read-protocol library lookup APIs. Most resources also expose machine-readable representations by appending .json, .yml, or .rdf to any Open Library URL.

## Kin Score — 26.6 / 100 (thin)

Scored 2026-08-20 under rubric 0.12.0. Trend: flat (+0.0 from 26.6).

| Facet | Score |
|---|---|
| Discoverability | 64.8 |
| Contract Quality | 44.6 |
| Governance | 0.0 |
| Contract Governance | 0.0 |
| Operational Transparency | 10.5 |
| Developer Ergonomics | 11.9 |
| Commercial Clarity | 28.6 |
| Access Clarity | 28.6 |

Regulatory layer — **Government & Public Sector**: 18.5 (matched via tags).

## Agent readiness — 24.5 (agent-aware)

| Dimension | Value |
|---|---|
| Spec Presence | yes |
| Agentic Access | derived |
| Reversibility Documented | na |
| MCP Server | no |
| Auth Clarity | no |
| Idempotency | na |
| Error Semantics | no |
| OpenAPI Examples | no |
| Rate Limit Signal | documented |
| Event Surface Described | no |
| Agent Skills | no |
| Well Known Catalog | no |
| Consent Identity | no |
| Agent Card | no |
| Dry Run Mode | na |

## Access

Freemium — onboarding: unknown, pricing: freemium, trial: no (confidence: medium).

## APIs (19)

- **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 l...
- **Open Library Search Inside API** — Full-text search across the millions of digitized books in the Internet Archive's collection, returning matching passages and book identifiers.
- **Open Library Works API** — Retrieve work-level records (the abstract concept of a book independent of edition) by Open Library Work ID. Returns JSON, YAML, or RDF/XML.
- **Open Library Editions API** — Retrieve edition-level records (specific printings, ISBNs, formats) by Open Library Edition ID, ISBN-10, ISBN-13, OCLC, or LCCN.
- **Open Library Authors API** — Fetch author records and their works by Open Library Author ID. Supports JSON, YAML, and RDF/XML representations.
- **Open Library Subjects API** — Retrieve books, works, and metadata grouped by subject (genre, topic, place, time, person) with paging and faceting.
- **Open Library Covers API** — Retrieve book and author cover images by Open Library ID, ISBN, OCLC, LCCN, or Goodreads ID, in small, medium, and large sizes.
- **Open Library Lists API** — Read and manage user-curated reading lists. Authenticated patrons can create lists and add or remove works, editions, and subjects.
- **Open Library My Books API** — Access a patron's public reading log: Want to Read, Currently Reading, and Already Read shelves for a given Open Library account.
- **Open Library Recent Changes API** — Stream recent edits across the Open Library catalog including works, editions, authors, lists, and subjects, with filtering by kind and time range.
- **Open Library Read API** — Legacy partner API that returns availability and read URLs for books matched by ISBN, OCLC, LCCN, or OLID identifiers across libraries and the Internet Archive.
- **Open Library Authors API** — The Authors API from Open Library — 1 operation(s) for authors.
- **Open Library Editions API** — The Editions API from Open Library — 1 operation(s) for editions.
- **Open Library Lists API** — The Lists API from Open Library — 1 operation(s) for lists.
- **Open Library Recentchanges.json API** — The Recentchanges.json API from Open Library — 1 operation(s) for recentchanges.json.
- **Open Library Search API** — The Search API from Open Library — 2 operation(s) for search.
- **Open Library Search.json API** — The Search.json API from Open Library — 1 operation(s) for search.json.
- **Open Library Subjects API** — The Subjects API from Open Library — 1 operation(s) for subjects.
- **Open Library Works API** — The Works API from Open Library — 1 operation(s) for works.

## Agentic access (1)

- **Open Library Agentic Access** — 9 operations

## Security (1)

- **Open Library Domain Security** — TLSv1.3

## Plans (1)

- **Open Library Plans Pricing**

## Tags

Authors, Books, Catalog, Covers, Libraries, Open Data, Reading lists, Search, Subjects

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Profiled by [API Evangelist](https://apievangelist.com) and published on [APIs.io](https://apis.io/providers/open-library/). Scores are computed from the provider's own public artifacts under a published rubric.