Search works and editions
search_booksFind books in the Internet Archive's Open Library catalogue by title, author, subject, setting, time period, or decade. Get first publication year, edition count, and archive identifiers to read scans.
Instructions
Find a book on Open Library, the Internet Archive's catalogue of works, either by name or by description. Pass 'query' when you know what you are looking for: a title, an author. Free text matches parts of words and reads titles and authors together, so a name also finds works by authors whose name merely contains it: read 'authors' on each row before treating a result as that author's work. Pass the criteria instead when you do not, and they combine: 'subject' for what a work is catalogued under, 'place' for where it is set, 'time' for the period it treats, 'person' for who it is about, plus ranges on the year of first publication and on the page count. 'sort' by rating or by readers answers 'what is worth reading', which relevance alone does not. 'first_published_year' is the year Open Library derives from its edition records, and a reissue or a mistyped edition can put it centuries from the real date; 'newest' and 'oldest' rank on that field, so the rows carrying the doubtful years lead the order. Answers who wrote a book, when it first appeared and how many editions exist, which the item catalogue describes poorly because it holds one upload at a time. 'archive_identifiers' lists up to 3 scans of the work: pass one to get_item, or use it to read the book itself. 'scan_count' says how many the work has. A scan is one edition, and a work first printed centuries ago is often held only as a later reissue or a translation, so read the scan's own record before dating what it holds. Use this to identify a work, and search_inside to find a phrase within one.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| page | No | ||
| sort | No | 'rating' is how readers scored it, 'readers' is how many recorded reading it, and both answer a question relevance cannot. 'newest' and 'oldest' rank on 'first_published_year', which the index takes from edition records: read that field on each row against the work's page before repeating it. | relevance |
| time | No | The period the work treats, such as '20th century'. | |
| limit | No | ||
| place | No | Where the work is set, such as 'Shanghai'. | |
| query | No | Title or author, as free text. Optional when a criterion below is given. | |
| person | No | Who the work is about, such as 'Napoleon'. | |
| subject | No | What the work is catalogued under, such as 'grief' or 'spy stories'. Also carries prizes and lists, such as 'Booker Prize'. | |
| year_to | No | Latest first publication. | |
| language | No | Three-letter code of the language, such as 'eng' or 'fre'. | |
| pages_max | No | Longest acceptable work. The count is a median across editions. | |
| pages_min | No | Shortest acceptable work. | |
| year_from | No | Earliest first publication. |
Output Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| page | Yes | ||
| books | Yes | ||
| notes | Yes | ||
| query | Yes | The free text the caller sent, as it was sent. Null when the search was made of criteria alone. | |
| total | Yes | Works matching, not the number returned. | |
| searched_for | Yes | What this answer answers, in words: the free text and every criterion applied. |