Open Library Scraper - Books, Authors & Editions

Disclaimer: This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Internet Archive or any of its subsidiaries. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. "Open Library" is referenced only to describe the publicly available website this Actor collects data from.

Search Open Library (openlibrary.org, from the Internet Archive) for books. Search by title, author, subject or keyword and get clean rows with authors, first publish year, edition count, ISBN, publisher, subjects, ratings, page count, cover image and read/borrow access. No API key.

What you get per book

Field	Meaning
title / url / id	Title, Open Library work URL, and work id
authors / firstPublishYear / editionCount	Authors, first publication year, number of editions
isbn / publisher / languages	An ISBN, publisher and languages
subjects	Up to 10 subject tags
ratingsAverage / ratingsCount / pagesMedian	Community rating, rating count and median page count
ebookAccess / hasFullText / coverImage / iaId	Ebook availability, cover image and Internet Archive id
firstSentence	Opening sentence (when recorded)

Input

{ "searchQueries": ["tolkien", "python programming"], "maxItemsPerQuery": 100 }

• Search terms - title, author, subject or keyword, one per line.
• Import from a file - paste a list, or link a public .txt/.csv, a Google Sheet/Drive link, or an Apify key-value-store record.
• Output fields - trim every record to exactly the columns you need.

Leave everything empty and the run returns a small free sample so you can see the shape first.

Reliability

Reads the official Open Library search API directly. Open Library is a community service with variable response times, so the actor uses a generous timeout and retries; a search that genuinely returns nothing, or an import that cannot be read, bills $0 and says why. Long runs stop cleanly before the timeout.

Honest limits

• firstSentence and hasFullText are populated only where Open Library has the data - many titles have no recorded first sentence, and print-only books have no ebook copy.
• Open Library's endpoint can be slow under load; the actor retries, but very large runs take proportionally longer.

Pricing

$0.001 per book on the FREE tier (tiered pricing lowers it with volume). Only books actually saved are billed; empty searches and unreadable imports cost nothing.

Output views

• Books - title, authors, year, edition count, rating and the Open Library URL.

Use with AI assistants (MCP)

Available through the Apify MCP server - an agent can look up a book's editions and ISBNs, enrich a reading list, or pull a subject's catalog in one call.

Agent-ready: autonomous payments (x402 & Skyfire)

This actor is agent-ready — AI agents can discover it, run it, and pay for it autonomously, with no Apify account and no human in the loop. It uses pay-per-event pricing and limited permissions, so it qualifies for Apify's agentic-payment standards:

• x402 — an open, HTTP-native payment protocol. Agents pay per run in USDC on the Base network directly through the Apify MCP server — no account, no API key.
• Skyfire — agent-to-service payments for fully autonomous AI-agent workflows.

Building an AI agent, MCP tool, or autonomous data pipeline? This scraper is ready to plug in and pay as it goes.

Automate & schedule

Run this Actor on autopilot and pull results into your own stack:

• Apify API - start runs, fetch datasets and manage schedules over REST.
• apify-client for JavaScript and apify-client for Python - official SDKs.
• Schedules - run it hourly, daily or weekly and keep your dataset current.
• Webhooks - trigger downstream actions (CRM import, Slack alert, email sequence) the moment a run finishes.

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'MY_APIFY_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('scrapesage/openlibrary-scraper').call({
    "searchQueries": [
        "tolkien"
    ],
    "maxItemsPerQuery": 10
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(`Got ${items.length} records`);

Integrate with any app

Connect the dataset to thousands of apps - no code required:

• Make - multi-step automation scenarios.
• Zapier - push new records straight into your CRM or spreadsheet.
• Slack - get notified when a scheduled run finds something new.
• Google Drive / Sheets - auto-export every run to a spreadsheet.
• Airbyte - pipe results into your data warehouse.
• GitHub - trigger runs from commits or releases.

FAQ

How is this Actor billed? Pay-per-event: you pay only for the results it delivers, with no monthly rental and no start fee. The per-event price is shown on the Pricing tab.

Can I schedule it and get results automatically? Yes - create a Schedule and add a webhook or an integration (Google Sheets, Slack, Make, Zapier) to push each run's dataset wherever you need it.

Which export formats are available? Every run's dataset can be downloaded as JSON, CSV, Excel (XLSX), XML, HTML or RSS from the Apify Console or the API.

Can I run it from code or an AI agent? Yes - through the Apify API and client libraries, or from Claude, ChatGPT and other assistants via the Apify MCP server.

Is it legal to scrape Open Library? This Actor collects publicly available data only. You are responsible for using the output in compliance with applicable laws (including data-protection law where personal data is involved) and the source's terms. See the Disclaimer below.

Is this an official Open Library tool? No. It is an independent, third-party Actor with no affiliation to, endorsement by or sponsorship from the Internet Archive. See the Disclaimer below.

Disclaimer

This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Internet Archive or any of its subsidiaries. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

"Open Library" and any related marks are the property of their respective owners and are used here only in a descriptive, nominative sense - to identify the publicly accessible website from which this Actor collects data. This Actor is not an official Open Library product, is not authorised or certified by the Internet Archive, and does not distribute Open Library software. It collects only publicly available information; you are responsible for ensuring your use of that data complies with applicable laws, regulations and the terms of the source website.

Need help?

Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab, or visit the Apify help center. Feature requests are welcome - this Actor is actively maintained.