Open Library
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.
More than an index entry, but the surface is still mostly links rather than artifacts — the cohort most likely to move a full band from modest, well-targeted work.
API Evangelist profiles Open Library the way a machine reads it — 34 machine-readable artifacts across 1 API, pulled from the provider's own public surface and indexed so a developer, an analyst, or an AI agent can evaluate it against every other provider on the network.
Every provider in the network is reduced to the same set of machine-readable artifacts — OpenAPI contracts, event specifications, GraphQL schemas, runnable collections, pricing and rate-limit signals, security posture, OAuth scopes, and the agent surfaces (MCP servers and skills) that let software drive the API on its own. We profile them because the interface is the part of a company you can actually inspect: it is a truer signal of what a provider does than any marketing page. From those artifacts we compute the Kin Score — Open Library scores 25.8/100 (emerging), with a separate agent-readiness read of 20/100 (agent aware). The full breakdown is below, followed by every artifact we hold — each card links through to its machine-readable definition on apis.io.
Kin Score
This is the API Evangelist rating — a single, repeatable read computed from the artifacts on this page. Green fill is points earned; the red track is points possible, so every bar shows earned-versus-possible at a glance. Every facet and dimension name is a link: it opens that measurement's page on APIs.io, where the rating runs across the whole catalog — the exact checks that feed it, how every profiled provider distributes on it, and who is at the top of it.
Kin Score
How this is scored →scored 2026-09-08 · rubric v0.20.0
Put this on your own site. The badge is drawn live from Open Library's current Kin Score — paste it once and it updates itself every time the score is recomputed. It follows your visitor's light or dark setting, and it links back here so anyone who sees it can read the full breakdown.
<!-- Kin Score · API Evangelist -->
<a href="https://providers.apievangelist.com/providers/open-library/"
title="Open Library on API Evangelist — API profile and Kin Score">
<img src="https://apis.io/badge/open-library.svg"
alt="Open Library Kin Score — API readiness rating by API Evangelist" width="150" height="150" loading="lazy">
</a>[](https://providers.apievangelist.com/providers/open-library/)<!-- Kin Score · API Evangelist -->
<a href="https://providers.apievangelist.com/providers/open-library/"
title="Open Library on API Evangelist — API profile and Kin Score">
<img src="https://apis.io/badge/open-library/card.svg"
alt="Open Library Kin Score — API readiness rating by API Evangelist" width="340" height="120" loading="lazy">
</a>More shapes, themes and sizes → · Score as JSON · How badges work
How we profile Open Library
Each block below is one kind of artifact we hold for Open Library. For each we say what it is and why it earns a place in the profile, then list every one we've indexed — capped at two rows, scroll within the panel for the rest.
APIs 19
Each API is captured as its own OpenAPI definition — every operation, parameter, and response. This is the single most useful machine-readable description of what an API does, and it's what lets us score, lint, mock, and generate against it without asking the provider for anything.
Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.
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.
Scroll within the panel for all 19 ·
Open Collections 10
Open, tool-agnostic collections carry the same runnable value as Postman without locking you to one client — the portable, forkable form of the same exercise.
Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).
API Collection
OPEN COLLECTIONOpen Library Authors API
OPEN COLLECTIONOpen Library Authors Editions API
OPEN COLLECTIONOpen Library Authors Lists API
OPEN COLLECTIONOpen Library Authors Recentchanges.json API
OPEN COLLECTIONOpen Library Authors Search API
OPEN COLLECTIONOpen Library Authors Search.json API
OPEN COLLECTIONOpen Library Authors Subjects API
OPEN COLLECTIONOpen Library Authors Works API
OPEN COLLECTIONOpen Library API
OPEN COLLECTIONScroll within the panel for all 10 ·
Pricing Plans 1
Pricing is part of the interface. Machine-readable plans tell you what a tier costs and includes before you commit — one of the things the Kin Score reads for access clarity — renamed from commercial clarity in rubric 0.12, because a free statutory interface has access terms and no commercial ones.
Published pricing tiers and plan structures.
Rate Limits 1
Rate limits are the difference between a demo that works and a production integration that doesn't fall over. Publishing them is an operational-transparency signal — and a hard requirement for any agent that plans its own throughput.
Documented rate limits and quota policies.
Open Library Rate Limits
RATE LIMITSFinOps 1
Cost, billing, and metering signals let a buyer model the financial operations of an API before it's live. We profile them for the same reason we profile pricing: the money is part of the contract.
Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.
Open Library Finops
FINOPSSecurity Posture 1
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals — the evidence that a provider takes security seriously enough to document it. We profile it because you can't govern what you can't see.
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.
Agentic Access 1
An x-agentic-access contract marks which operations are safe for an agent to run on its own and which need a human in the loop. It is the difference between an API an agent can use and one it can use safely.
Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.
Resources
Every other property we hold for Open Library — documentation, portals, status pages, policies, and corporate surface — grouped by the job it does, following the integrator's arc from getting started to running in production.
Documentation 1
Reference material describing how the API behaves
Agent Surfaces 1
MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs
Build 1
SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with
Access & Security 1
Authentication, authorization, and security posture
Operate 1
Status, limits, changes, and where to get help
Commercial 1
Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use
Company 2
The organization behind the API
Other 2
Properties that don't map to a standard resource type
← All providers · Data indexed from github.com/api-evangelist/open-library · machine-readable index on apis.io
This is an independent, third-party profile of Open Library, published by API Evangelist. We do not operate, host, resell, or support these APIs, and we are not affiliated with or endorsed by the company unless stated above. Everything here is built from publicly available information — the company's own site, developer portal, documentation, public repositories, and the specifications it publishes for public use. Nothing is obtained by breaching a system, defeating an access control, or using credentials.
The Kin Score and Agent Readiness rating are independently calculated assessments of a company's public API artifacts, scored against a published rubric. They are not certifications, endorsements, security assessments, or audits.
Corrections, re-scores, and removal are free — no partnership or purchase required, and you do not need to justify the request. A removed company is recorded as unrated, never scored zero for having asked. Acknowledgement within one business day; removal within two.
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you will get a person, not a form — we will tell you exactly which public URLs this profile was built from.