mcp-open-library

Model Context Protocol server for accessing Open Library book and author data.

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Provides an implementation of a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server to enable AI assistants and clients to search and retrieve book and author information from the Open Library API. Supports searching by title, author name, and various identifiers, as well as fetching author photos and book covers. Returns structured, machine-readable data suitable for AI model context integration. Offers installation via Smithery, manual setup, and Docker deployment.

Key Features

Book search by title

Author search by name

Retrieve detailed author information by Open Library key

Get author photos by OLID

Fetch book cover images by various IDs (ISBN, OCLC, LCCN, OLID, ID)

Get detailed book information by ID

Structured JSON output for AI clients

MCP Inspector for server testing

Docker support for deployment

TypeScript implementation

Use Cases

Enabling AI assistants to answer book and author related queries

Integrating bibliographic search in conversational AI applications

Providing book metadata and images to generative AI tools

Augmenting AI chatbots with detailed author information and bios

Building researcher or librarian tools for quick bibliographic lookup

Automating addition of book covers and author photos to reading apps

Supporting educational bots with accurate book and author facts

Facilitating book recommendation systems with structured data

Supplying context to writing or study assistants

Deploying custom MCP-compliant servers for knowledge retrieval

README

MCP Open Library

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for the Open Library API that enables AI assistants to search for book and author information.

Overview

This project implements an MCP server that provides tools for AI assistants to interact with the Open Library. It allows searching for book information by title, searching for authors by name, retrieving detailed author information using their Open Library key, and getting URLs for author photos using their Open Library ID (OLID). The server returns structured data for book and author information.

Features

Book Search by Title: Search for books using their title (get_book_by_title).
Author Search by Name: Search for authors using their name (get_authors_by_name).
Get Author Details: Retrieve detailed information for a specific author using their Open Library key (get_author_info).
Get Author Photo: Get the URL for an author's photo using their Open Library ID (OLID) (get_author_photo).
Get Book Cover: Get the URL for a book's cover image using various identifiers (ISBN, OCLC, LCCN, OLID, ID) (get_book_cover).
Get Book by ID: Retrieve detailed book information using various identifiers (ISBN, LCCN, OCLC, OLID) (get_book_by_id).

Installation

Installing via Smithery

To install MCP Open Library for Claude Desktop automatically via Smithery:

bash

npx -y @smithery/cli install @8enSmith/mcp-open-library --client claude

Manual Installation

bash

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/your-username/mcp-open-library.git
cd mcp-open-library

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build the project
npm run build

Usage

Running the Server

You can use the MCP Inspector to test the server:

bash

npm run inspector

Access the MCP Inspector and then test the tool e.g.

Using with an MCP Client

This server implements the Model Context Protocol, which means it can be used by any MCP-compatible AI assistant or client e.g. Claude Desktop. The server exposes the following tools:

get_book_by_title: Search for book information by title
get_authors_by_name: Search for author information by name
get_author_info: Get detailed information for a specific author using their Open Library Author Key
get_author_photo: Get the URL for an author's photo using their Open Library Author ID (OLID)
get_book_cover: Get the URL for a book's cover image using a specific identifier (ISBN, OCLC, LCCN, OLID, or ID)
get_book_by_id: Get detailed book information using a specific identifier (ISBN, LCCN, OCLC, or OLID)

Example get_book_by_title input:

json

{
  "title": "The Hobbit"
}

Example get_book_by_title output:

json

[
  {
    "title": "The Hobbit",
    "authors": [
      "J. R. R. Tolkien"
    ],
    "first_publish_year": 1937,
    "open_library_work_key": "/works/OL45883W",
    "edition_count": 120,
    "cover_url": "https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/10581294-M.jpg"
  }
]

Example get_authors_by_name input:

json

{
  "name": "J.R.R. Tolkien"
}

Example get_authors_by_name output:

json

[
  {
    "key": "OL26320A",
    "name": "J. R. R. Tolkien",
    "alternate_names": [
      "John Ronald Reuel Tolkien"
    ],
    "birth_date": "3 January 1892",
    "top_work": "The Hobbit",
    "work_count": 648
  }
]

Example get_author_info input:

json

{
  "author_key": "OL26320A"
}

Example get_author_info output:

json

{
  "name": "J. R. R. Tolkien",
  "personal_name": "John Ronald Reuel Tolkien",
  "birth_date": "3 January 1892",
  "death_date": "2 September 1973",
  "bio": "John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) was a major scholar of the English language, specializing in Old and Middle English. He served as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and later the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford University.",
  "alternate_names": ["John Ronald Reuel Tolkien"],
  "photos": [6791763],
  "key": "/authors/OL26320A",
  "remote_ids": {
    "viaf": "95218067",
    "wikidata": "Q892"
  },
  "revision": 43,
  "last_modified": {
    "type": "/type/datetime",
    "value": "2023-02-12T05:50:22.881"
  }
}

Example get_author_photo input:

json

{
  "olid": "OL26320A"
}

Example get_author_photo output:

text

https://covers.openlibrary.org/a/olid/OL26320A-L.jpg

Example get_book_cover input:

json

{
  "key": "ISBN",
  "value": "9780547928227",
  "size": "L"
}

Example get_book_cover output:

text

https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/isbn/9780547928227-L.jpg

The get_book_cover tool accepts the following parameters:

key: The type of identifier (one of: ISBN, OCLC, LCCN, OLID, or ID)
value: The value of the identifier
size: Optional cover size (S for small, M for medium, L for large, defaults to L)

Example get_book_by_id input:

json

{
  "idType": "isbn",
  "idValue": "9780547928227"
}

Example get_book_by_id output:

json

{
  "title": "The Hobbit",
  "authors": [
    "J. R. R. Tolkien"
  ],
  "publishers": [
    "Houghton Mifflin Harcourt"
  ],
  "publish_date": "October 21, 2012",
  "number_of_pages": 300,
  "isbn_13": [
    "9780547928227"
  ],
  "isbn_10": [
    "054792822X"
  ],
  "oclc": [
    "794607877"
  ],
  "olid": [
    "OL25380781M"
  ],
  "open_library_edition_key": "/books/OL25380781M",
  "open_library_work_key": "/works/OL45883W",
  "cover_url": "https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/8231496-M.jpg",
  "info_url": "https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25380781M/The_Hobbit",
  "preview_url": "https://archive.org/details/hobbit00tolkien"
}

The get_book_by_id tool accepts the following parameters:

idType: The type of identifier (one of: isbn, lccn, oclc, olid)
idValue: The value of the identifier

An example of this tool being used in Claude Desktop can be see here:

Docker

You can test this MCP server using Docker. To do this first run:

bash

docker build -t mcp-open-library .
docker run -p 8080:8080 mcp-open-library

You can then test the server running within Docker via the inspector e.g.

bash

npm run inspector http://localhost:8080

Development

Project Structure

src/index.ts - Main server implementation
src/types.ts - TypeScript type definitions
src/index.test.ts - Test suite

Available Scripts

npm run build - Build the TypeScript code
npm run watch - Watch for changes and rebuild
npm test - Run the test suite
npm run format - Format code with Prettier
npm run inspector - Run the MCP Inspector against the server

Running Tests

bash

npm test

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a pull request.

Acknowledgments

Star History

Repository Owner

8enSmith

User

Repository Details

Language TypeScript

Default Branch main

Size 508 KB

Contributors 3

License MIT License

MCP Verified Sep 2, 2025

Programming Languages

TypeScript

88.33%

JavaScript

9.83%

Dockerfile

1.84%

Topics

ai assistants authors books internet-archive mcp mcp-server modelcontextprotocol open-library open-library-api openlibrary

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mcp-open-library

Key Features

Use Cases

README

MCP Open Library

Overview

Features

Installation

Installing via Smithery

Manual Installation

Usage

Running the Server

Using with an MCP Client

Docker

Development

Project Structure

Available Scripts

Running Tests

Contributing

Acknowledgments

Star History

Repository Owner

Repository Details

Programming Languages

Tags

Topics

Related MCPs