Get Books
Get book metadata by bibliography keys.
This endpoint provides basic information about books, including URLs, thumbnail links, and preview availability. Supports ISBNs, LCCNs, OCLC numbers, and Open Library IDs.
- bibkeys is expected a comma separated string of ISBNs, LCCNs, etc.
- 'high_priority=true' will attempt to import an edition from a supplied ISBN if no matching edition is found. If not high_priority, then missed bib_keys are queued for lookup on the affiliate-server, and any responses are staged in import_item.
Example call: http://localhost:8080/api/books.json?bibkeys=059035342X,0312368615&high_priority=true
Returns a JSONified dictionary of the form: {"059035342X": { "bib_key": "059035342X", "info_url": "http://localhost:8080/books/OL43M/Harry_Potter_and_the_Sorcerer's_Stone", "preview": "noview", "preview_url": "https://archive.org/details/lccn_078073006991", "thumbnail_url": "https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/21-S.jpg" } "0312368615": {...} }
Request
- Base URL: https://openlibrary.org (the document declares no server; this is the origin it was published from)
- URL: https://openlibrary.org/api/books.json
- Auth: none declared
Query parameters
Comma-separated list of bibliography keys (ISBN, LCCN, OCLC, etc.)
Include detailed book information
Format of returned data
JSONP callback function name
Attempt import immediately for missing ISBNs
Explicitly set response format (overrides path-based detection)
Response
Successful Response
Changes
No recorded changes to this operation across all 1 revision of this API.