# Open Library Book Scraper – Books, ISBNs & Metadata (`ninhothedev/open-library-book-scraper`) Actor

$0.5/1K 🔥 Fast Open Library book scraper! Title, author, ISBN, year, subjects, cover & publisher. JSON, CSV, Excel or API in seconds. Search or list ISBNs & pull thousands of books for catalogs & research ⚡

- **URL**: https://apify.com/ninhothedev/open-library-book-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [ninhothedev](https://apify.com/ninhothedev) (community)
- **Categories:** News
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.40 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Open Library Book Scraper – Books, ISBN & Ratings

**Scrape book data from Open Library (20M+ books): title, authors, year, ISBNs, subjects, ratings and cover. Search or look up by ISBN. A free Google Books alternative. JSON, CSV, Excel.**

### 💵 Pricing

**Pay per result — $0.0004 per item.** No subscription, no proxy needed. You only pay for the data you scrape, and new Apify accounts include free monthly credits so you can test it for **$0**.

### 🔎 What can it extract?

- Title, authors, first publish year
- Edition count, ISBNs, languages
- Publishers, subjects
- Ratings, page count, cover URL
- Search by title/author/subject or ISBN

### 🚀 How do I use it?

1. Click **Try for free**.
2. Set the input (see example below).
3. Click **Start** and download results as JSON, CSV or Excel — or pull them via the API / schedule them.

### ⚙️ Input example

```json
{
  "mode": "search",
  "query": "dune",
  "maxItems": 100
}
```

### 📦 Output example

```json
{
  "title": "Dune",
  "authors": [
    "Frank Herbert"
  ],
  "first_publish_year": 1965,
  "ratings_average": 4.2
}
```

### 🎯 Use cases

- Book apps & catalogs
- ISBN enrichment
- Library/research datasets
- Reading-list features

### 💰 How much will it cost?

You pay only the per-result price (no proxy cost):
100 → ~$0.04 · 1,000 → ~$0 · 10,000 → ~$4

### 🆚 Why this one

| Feature | This actor | Others |
|---|---|---|
| 20M+ books, free | ✅ | limited/paid |
| ISBN + subjects + ratings | ✅ | partial |
| No key needed | ✅ | sometimes |

### 🔗 Related actors

- [Wikipedia Scraper](https://apify.com/ninhothedev/wikipedia-scraper) — knowledge
- [Itunes Store Scraper](https://apify.com/ninhothedev/itunes-store-scraper) — ebooks
- [Recipe Scraper](https://apify.com/ninhothedev/recipe-scraper) — recipes
- [Google News Scraper](https://apify.com/ninhothedev/google-news-scraper) — news

### ❓ FAQ

**Key/proxy?** No. **ISBN?** Use mode=isbn.

### 🛟 Support

Found a bug or need an extra field? Open an issue on the actor — fixes and new fields ship fast.

### Legal & privacy

Public data via the Open Library API.

***

**Keywords:** open library scraper, book data, isbn, google books alternative, metadata, JSON CSV Excel

# Actor input Schema

## `mode` (type: `string`):

search (keyword/title/author/subject query) or isbn (look up a list of ISBNs).

## `query` (type: `string`):

Free-text keyword query for mode=search (matches title, author, subject, etc.). Leave blank if using the title/author/subject fields.

## `title` (type: `string`):

Restrict mode=search to a specific book title (optional).

## `author` (type: `string`):

Restrict mode=search to a specific author name (optional).

## `subject` (type: `string`):

Restrict mode=search to a subject/genre, e.g. 'science fiction' (optional).

## `isbns` (type: `array`):

List of ISBN-10 or ISBN-13 numbers to look up (mode=isbn).

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of books to return.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "mode": "search",
  "query": "dune",
  "isbns": [],
  "maxItems": 100
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `books` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "query": "dune",
    "maxItems": 100
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("ninhothedev/open-library-book-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "query": "dune",
    "maxItems": 100,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("ninhothedev/open-library-book-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "query": "dune",
  "maxItems": 100
}' |
apify call ninhothedev/open-library-book-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=ninhothedev/open-library-book-scraper",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/LXSt2HvEjHdp0Qdni/builds/Yb4PbfMpRBex8JnNu/openapi.json