A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides tools for AI assistants to interact with the Open Library API, enabling search for information about books and authors with detailed metadata retrieval.

Installation

Smithery

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

From Source

git clone https://github.com/8enSmith/mcp-open-library.git
cd mcp-open-library
npm install
npm run build

Docker

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

Available Tools

Tool	Description
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 about a specific author using their Open Library Author Key
get_author_photo	Get author photo URL using their Open Library Author ID (OLID)
get_book_cover	Get book cover URL 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)

Features

• Search books by title with detailed metadata
• Search authors by name with biographical information
• Get detailed author information using Open Library keys
• Get author photo URLs using Open Library ID (OLID)
• Get book cover URLs using various identifiers (ISBN, OCLC, LCCN, OLID, ID)
• Get detailed book information using multiple identifier types
• Returns structured data for book and author information

Usage Examples

Search for information about the book 'The Hobbit'

Find information about author 'J.R.R. Tolkien'

Get detailed author biography using Open Library author key

Get book cover for a specific ISBN

Find book details using various identifiers like ISBN or OCLC

Notes

Requires Node.js v22.21.1 for development. Can be tested using the MCP Inspector tool. Includes a comprehensive test suite and Docker support for containerized deployment.