The book reader can be embedded in any web page.

• Find new stuff to read.
  • New authors on the same subject.
  • Related subjects.
• Discover interesting trends.
  • Can you guess what subject this is?
    
• Find relevant publishers.
• In general, a useful mine of data.

Allows you to access book covers from the Open Library Book Covers Repository.

• URL Pattern: http://covers.openlibrary.org/b/$key/$value-$size.jpg
• key can be any one of ISBN, OCLC, LCCN, OLID and ID (case-insensitive)
• size can be one of S, M and L for small, medium and large respectively.
• Some sample urls:
  • http://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/240727-S.jpg
  • http://covers.openlibrary.org/b/olid/OL7440033M-S.jpg
  • http://covers.openlibrary.org/b/isbn/0385472579-S.jpg
  • http://covers.openlibrary.org/b/lccn/93005405-S.jpg
  • http://covers.openlibrary.org/b/oclc/28419896-S.jpg
  • http://covers.openlibrary.org/b/goodreads/979250-S.jpg

• Inspired by Google Books API

http://openlibrary.org/api/books?bibkeys=lccn:55011803&callback=process

process({
    "lccn:55011803": {
        "bib_key": "lccn:55011803", 
        "preview": "borrow", 
        "thumbnail_url": "http://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/6563267-S.jpg", 
        "preview_url": "http://www.archive.org/details/sliderulepractic00bish", 
        "info_url": "http://openlibrary.org/books/OL6179353M/Slide_rule"
    }
});

http://openlibrary.org/api/books?bibkeys=lccn:55011803&callback=process&jscmd=data

process({
  "lccn:55011803": {
    "url": "http://openlibrary.org/books/OL6179353M/Slide_rule",        
    "title": "Slide rule", 
    "pagination": "149 p.", 
    "identifiers": {
        "lccn": ["55011803"], 
        "librarything": ["358065"]
    }, 
    "cover": {
        "small": "http://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/6563267-S.jpg", ...
    }, 
    "subjects": [...],
    "authors": [...],
    "ebooks": [{
      "availability": "borrow",
      "borrow_url": "http://openlibrary.org/books/OL6179353M/Slide_rule/borrow",
      "preview_url": "http://www.archive.org/details/sliderulepractic00bish", 
      "formats": {...}
    }], ...
  }
});

• Used to convert identifiers into resources on Open Library.
• Can create links to borrowable or readable books on OL.
• http://openlibrary.org/api/volumes/brief/isbn/0596156715.json (single) or http://openlibrary.org/api/volumes/brief/json/id:1;lccn:50006784|olid:OL6179000M;lccn:55011330 (multi)
• Return matchend items along with status information and links.
• Can be used on a the front end using Javascript.

http://openlibrary.org/api/volumes/brief/isbn/0596156715.json

{
    "items":[{
        "match": "exact",
        "status": "full access"
    }],
    "itemURL": "http://www.archive.org/stream/TheArtOfCommunity",
    "cover": {
        "large": "http://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/6223071-L.jpg",
        "medium": "http://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/6223071-M.jpg",
        "small": "http://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/6223071-S.jpg"
    },
    "fromRecord": "/books/OL23747519M",
    "ol-edition-id": "OL23747519M",
    "ol-work-id": "OL15328717W"}],
    "records":{ 
        "/books/OL23747519M": {
            "data": { ... }
            "isbns": ["0596156715", "9780596156718"],
            "publishDates": ["August 2009"],
            "recordURL": "http://openlibrary.org/books/OL23747519M"
        }
    }
}

• Used to get works of a subject.
• http://openlibrary.org/subjects/world_war_2.json
• Will return a list of works relating to World War 2.
• Passing ?details=true gives prominent publishers, authors etc.
• There are few query filters (ebooks, published_in, limit and offset).

• This API is used to obtain machine readable versions of resources.
• http://openlibrary.org/books/OL16727417M/Anathem

• http://openlibrary.org/books/OL16727417M.json

  {
      "key": "/books/OL16727417M", 
      "title": "Anathem", 
      "works": [
          { "key": "/works/OL14911626W" }
      ],
      "isbn_10": ["0061474096", "0061694940"], 
      "isbn_13": ["9780061474095", "9780061694943"], 
      "identifiers": {
          "goodreads": ["3268684", "2845024"], 
          "librarything": ["5116802"]
      }, ...
  }
  

• Open question.
• Integrate lending with Koha
• Add "read on Open Library" buttons.
• Koha installations are reliable sources of bibliographic data.
• How to get data from Koha into Open Library?