ZBS Index What actually exists in applied AI, with the source next to it

mcp server

openlibrary-mcp-server

Search books and authors, fetch editions, browse subjects, and resolve cover images.

Description as published by the maintainer. Source

  • version 0.2.3
  • active
  • retrieval

active — Most recent push to the repository was 2026-07-30. Dashed tags are derived by ZBS Index from the published description, not stated by the maintainer.

What this server can do

10 functions, named and described by the server itself. Parameter names are shown because they say more about what a function does than its name usually does.

openlibrary_get_author(author_id)
Fetch author detail by Open Library Author ID (OL…A). Returns bio, birth/death dates, photo IDs, and linked identifiers from Wikidata, VIAF, ISNI, Goodreads, and LibraryThing. Use openlibrary_search_authors to find an author ID first. Required: author_id.
openlibrary_get_author_works(limit, offset, author_id)
List works by an author. Returns titles, cover IDs, and work OLIDs for drilling into editions or details. Use openlibrary_get_author for author bio and details, or openlibrary_get_editions to explore specific printings. Required: author_id.
openlibrary_get_cover_url(size, target, id_type, identifier)
Resolve a cover image URL for a book or author photo. Returns a direct HTTPS URL in the requested size (S/M/L). The Covers API always returns HTTP 200 — missing covers return a 1×1 placeholder GIF, not a 404 — so the identifier format is validated locally first: "id" must be numeric, "isbn" 10 or 13 digits, "olid" an edition OLID (OL…M) for target "book" and an author OLID (OL…A) for target "author". Identifiers with path separators or control characters, and author-by-ISBN lookups, are rejected before any request. URLs can be embedded in markdown as ![cover](url). Required: identifier, id_type.
openlibrary_get_edition(id_type, identifiers)
Resolve one or more editions by identifier: ISBN-10, ISBN-13, OCLC, LCCN, or Open Library Edition ID (OL…M). Every identifier in a call shares one id_type — pass id_type "isbn" for both ISBN-10 and ISBN-13. Up to 50 identifiers resolve in a single upstream request, so a bibliography or shelf export costs one call rather than one per book; a large batch is a large response, so ask for what you need. Returns full edition metadata including authors, publisher, language, all identifier types, and the parent work ID, with author names inline and no secondary lookup; when the edition record itself lists no authors, they are recovered from the parent work and marked as such. Partial success is the norm — identifiers that resolve come back in editions, the rest are listed in unresolved with a reason, and the call fails only when nothing resolved. Required: identifiers, id_type.
openlibrary_get_editions(limit, offset, work_id)
List editions of a work — different publishers, languages, formats, and print runs. Returns ISBNs, publisher, language, page count, and edition OLIDs. Use after openlibrary_get_work or openlibrary_search_books to find a specific printing. Required: work_id.
openlibrary_get_subject(limit, offset, subject)
Browse works by subject. Returns matching works with edition counts and cover IDs, plus the total work count for the subject. Case and spacing are normalized before lookup, so "Science Fiction" and "science_fiction" are the same request. Subject tags are user-contributed and the vocabulary varies — when a subject returns no works, try a different word form (singular/plural), a synonym, or a broader term. Required: subject.
openlibrary_get_work(work_id)
Fetch a work by Open Library Work ID (OL…W). Returns title, description, subjects, cover IDs, and linked author IDs for follow-up lookups. Works represent the abstract book concept independent of any specific edition. Note: author names are not included — use openlibrary_get_author or openlibrary_search_books for names. Required: work_id.
openlibrary_search_authors(limit, query, offset)
Search Open Library authors by name. Returns Open Library Author IDs, names, birth/death dates, top works, and subject associations. Use author IDs for openlibrary_get_author (bio, remote IDs) or openlibrary_get_author_works (list of works). Required: query.
openlibrary_search_books(isbn, sort, limit, query, title, author, offset, subject, language, publisher, include_availability)
Full-text book search across Open Library works. Supports field filters (title, author, subject, publisher, ISBN, language) and returns work-level records with edition counts, cover IDs, and reading availability. Use query for general search or combine specific field filters. Results are work-level — drill into editions via openlibrary_get_editions.
openlibrary_search_inside(limit, query, offset)
Search the full text of books scanned by the Internet Archive — the "which book contains this passage?" lookup that the metadata tools cannot answer. Quote a phrase for an exact-phrase match; bare terms match anywhere in the text. Each result is an Internet Archive item with the matching passages as snippets, plus a relevance score. The full-text index is an order of magnitude slower than the metadata endpoints (seconds, not milliseconds), so reach for it when the passage is the question, not as a general book search — use openlibrary_search_books for title, author, or subject. Results key on Internet Archive items rather than Open Library works: chain the returned ia_identifier to archive.org, or match it against the ia_identifiers on openlibrary_search_books results to reach the catalogue record. Required: query.

Last successful function declaration observed on . Source: https://openlibrary.caseyjhand.com/mcp. We list what the server declared; we do not call any of these functions.

Endpoint status observed on . Source: https://openlibrary.caseyjhand.com/mcp.

Signals

These are separate measurements of different things. They are deliberately not combined into one score, because a popularity number that mixes website traffic with saves and stars cannot be checked or acted on.

Signal Value What it measures Window Observed Source
GitHub stars 1 Number of GitHub accounts that bookmarked this repository since it was created. It is a bookmark count, not installs, not active users and not quality. cumulative, all time GitHub
Last commit 2026-07-30 Date of the most recent push to any branch. This is the strongest cheap indicator of whether the project is still maintained. point in time GitHub
Open issues 6 Open issues plus open pull requests, as GitHub counts them together. A high number can mean an active project or an abandoned one. as of fetch GitHub
Latest published version 0.2.3 Latest version string the maintainer published to the registry. as of fetch Model Context Protocol
Registry record last updated 2026-07-26 When the registry record was last updated by its maintainer. point in time Model Context Protocol
License Apache-2.0 Licence GitHub detected in the repository. Detection can be wrong; the LICENSE file is authoritative. as of fetch GitHub
First listed in the MCP Registry 2026-07-26 Date this server was first published to the official MCP Registry. Not a usage or quality measure. point in time Model Context Protocol
repository status active The repository exists on GitHub and is not archived. This says nothing about how recently it was worked on. as of fetch GitHub
mcp tools declared 10 tools Number of functions the server itself declared when asked to list them. This is what the server offers an agent, not a measure of how well any of them work. as of probe openlibrary.caseyjhand.com
mcp endpoint status ok The server listed 10 functions when asked. as of probe openlibrary.caseyjhand.com

Where to get it

Related, by what their authors tagged them

These share tags the maintainers applied themselves, such as books, bun, cyanheads, internet-archive. Common tags like "mcp" or "ai" are ignored for this: agreeing with six hundred other projects is not a similarity.

This is not a recommendation and not a test result. It is a map of what the authors said their work is about.

Also from cyanheads

How the author describes it

Topics the maintainer set on GitHub: ai-agent, authors, books, bun, cyanheads, editions, internet-archive, isbn, library, mcp, mcp-server, model-context-protocol, open-library, typescript.

This record as data

Every field on this page, with its source and observation date, is in the catalog JSON. Fetch the whole kind at once instead of parsing this HTML.

GET /api/v1/entries/mcp_server.json

Sources

  1. cyanheads/openlibrary-mcp-server on GitHub — GitHub, observed , trust tier 3.
  2. Tools declared by the MCP server at https://openlibrary.caseyjhand.com/mcp — openlibrary.caseyjhand.com, observed , trust tier 4.
  3. Official MCP Registry — Model Context Protocol, observed , trust tier 1.