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Open Library ISBN Book Metadata Scraper

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Open Library ISBN Book Metadata Scraper

Bulk-enrich ISBN lists with complete Open Library metadata in a single run. Accepts up to thousands of ISBN-10 or ISBN-13 identifiers and returns a full record per book: title, authors, publishers, subjects, cover image URLs, reader ratings, reading-status counts, and the cross-reference identifier block (Goodreads, LibraryThing, LCCN, OCLC) that joins Open Library data to every other book dataset.

What You Get

Each output record includes:

Field Description
isbn_input The ISBN you provided
isbn_10 / isbn_13 Normalized edition identifiers
work_key Open Library work key (e.g. /works/OL45804W)
title / subtitle Book title and subtitle
authors Pipe-separated author names
author_keys Pipe-separated Open Library author OLIDs
publishers Up to 10 publisher names, pipe-separated
publish_date Edition publication date
number_of_pages Median page count across editions
subjects Full subject heading list, pipe-separated
description Work description / summary
first_sentence Opening sentence of the work
cover_url_small/medium/large Direct cover image URLs (S/M/L sizes)
languages Language codes, pipe-separated (e.g. `eng
edition_count Total number of known editions
first_publish_year Year of first publication
ratings_average Average reader rating (0-5)
ratings_count Number of ratings
want_to_read_count Users who want to read this book
currently_reading_count Users currently reading
already_read_count Users who have finished the book
id_goodreads Goodreads ID(s), pipe-separated
id_librarything LibraryThing ID(s), pipe-separated
id_lccn Library of Congress Control Number(s)
id_oclc OCLC/WorldCat number(s)
open_library_url Direct link to the work on Open Library

Use Cases

  • Catalog enrichment - add cover art, descriptions, and subject tags to an existing book database
  • RAG / LLM pipelines - bulk-enrich a reading list with structured metadata for retrieval-augmented generation
  • Library tech - match ISBNs to LCCN/OCLC/Goodreads identifiers for cross-system deduplication
  • Book recommendation systems - pull ratings, reading-status counts, and subject headings at scale
  • Research - build datasets from ISBN lists for book market or publishing research

Input

{
  "isbns": [
    "9780140328721",
    "9780385121675",
    "0062316095"
  ],
  "maxItems": 0
}
Field Type Description
isbns array (required) List of ISBN-10 or ISBN-13 strings. Hyphens are stripped automatically. Mixed formats accepted.
maxItems integer Maximum records to return. Set to 0 (default) for no limit.

How It Works

The actor calls the Open Library search.json API - one request per ISBN - and extracts the top-ranked work match. Cover image URLs are composed directly from the ISBN using the Open Library Covers API (no extra HTTP call). Requests are rate-limited to approximately 1 per second to respect Open Library's guidelines.

No authentication, no API key, and no proxy are required.

Data Source

Open Library (openlibrary.org) is an open, editable library catalog, part of the Internet Archive. It covers approximately 40 million editions and 30 million works. Open Library data is released under CC0 1.0 Universal - free to use, share, and adapt for any purpose.

Notes

  • Results represent the best work-level match for each ISBN. Ratings and reading-status counts are aggregated at the work level across all editions.
  • Some fields (description, first_sentence, subtitle) may be absent for less-documented books.
  • id_goodreads and id_librarything may contain multiple IDs (one per edition) - deduplicated and pipe-separated.
  • For very large ISBN lists (10,000+), use maxItems to chunk runs or set a generous timeout in run options.
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