MCP Open Library

What is mcp-open-library?

mcp-open-library is an MCP server that gives AI assistants read-only access to the Open Library catalogue — searching books and authors, and resolving cover and author photo URLs. It returns compact JSON projections of the Open Library responses rather than the raw payloads.

How to use mcp-open-library?

Nothing to install or build. Point an MCP‑compatible client (e.g., Claude Desktop) at the npm package and it is fetched on first run:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-open-library": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-open-library"]
    }
  }
}

In Claude Desktop that goes in claude_desktop_config.json; other clients use the same shape. The server is also published to the official MCP Registry as io.github.8enSmith/mcp-open-library, so registry-aware clients can install it by name. To hack on it locally, clone the repo, run npm install and npm run build, then use the MCP Inspector with npm run inspector.

Key features of mcp-open-library

• Search the catalogue across titles, authors, subjects, places, people, publishers and ISBNs (search_books)
• Search books by title (get_book_by_title)
• Search authors by name (get_authors_by_name)
• Retrieve detailed author information by Open Library key (get_author_info)
• Get author photo URL using Open Library ID (get_author_photo)
• Get book cover URL by ISBN, OCLC, LCCN, OLID, or ID (get_book_cover)
• Get full book details by ISBN, LCCN, OCLC, or OLID (get_book_by_id)
• Paged results — every search returns at most limit matches (default 10, maximum 50) alongside num_found, the total number of matches, which you page through with offset
• The cover tools check that an image actually exists and say so when it does not, rather than handing back a URL that resolves to a blank placeholder
• Every tool is a read-only lookup annotated readOnlyHint and openWorldHint; failures come back as tool results flagged isError, so an assistant can read what went wrong and correct its next call

Use cases of mcp-open-library

• AI assistant answering book queries in a chat interface
• Building a reading list or author biography tool
• Fetching book covers or author photos for display
• Looking up edition details by ISBN, OCLC, LCCN or OLID
• Disambiguating an author with a common name before fetching their details