# internetarchive/openlibrary

One webpage for every book ever published!

Repository: https://github.com/internetarchive/openlibrary
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/openlibrary
Homepage: https://openlibrary.org
Language: Python
License: AGPL-3.0
License Family: copyleft
Topics: internet-archive, open-source, books, library-catalogue, hacktoberfest
Last push: 2026-08-26T23:41:21+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 99/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 98, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 6516, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 15, "gap_med": 9, "n_releases_24m": 56}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 6634, forks 1972 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:45.834814+00:00)

## What it is
Open Library is an open, editable library catalog from the Internet Archive aiming to create one web page for every book ever published, with over 20 million book records. It is a Python web application offering book search, ebook borrowing via Controlled Digital Lending, reading logs, community editing, and public JSON/YAML/RDF APIs.

## Use cases
- look up book metadata by ISBN or title
- borrow free ebooks online
- track books I've read and set a yearly reading goal
- add or edit book records like a wiki
- fetch book data programmatically via an open API
- search the full text of millions of books
- build a book discovery app with open catalog data

## When to choose
- you need an open, community-editable catalog of book metadata
- you want free ebook borrowing through Controlled Digital Lending
- you're building mission-aligned tools that need book lookup APIs or bulk data dumps
- you want to contribute to an open book data ecosystem

## When to avoid
- you need a high-traffic commercial data backend - the APIs are rate-limited and not intended for that
- you need a modern DRM ebook store or commercial audiobook platform
- you need a lightweight library-only package rather than a full web application

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: active
- function: search-engine, web-framework, api-framework, documentation
- domain: education, web-development, self-hosted, cms
- platform: python, self-hosted
- tags: library-catalog, books, open-data, internet-archive, digital-lending, wiki-style-editing, book-metadata, public-api, web-server, docker, linux

## Member repositories
- internetarchive/openlibrary (main) score 99

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:45.834814+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:43:13.029957+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/internetarchive/openlibrary (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:45.834814+00:00, sha 8147afcb60d4)
  - homepage: https://openlibrary.org (fetched 2026-08-29T08:39:44.905822+00:00, sha eebfb4428393)
  - site_page: https://openlibrary.org/about (fetched 2026-08-29T08:39:44.920556+00:00, sha 699353f467a2)
  - site_page: https://openlibrary.org/about/vision (fetched 2026-08-29T08:39:44.922540+00:00, sha 857d5a4c4066)
  - site_page: https://openlibrary.org/help/faq/borrow (fetched 2026-08-29T08:39:44.914853+00:00, sha 2e46380fd8b1)
  - site_page: https://openlibrary.org/help/faq/yearly-reading-goals (fetched 2026-08-29T08:39:44.916850+00:00, sha 7754d5159567)
  - site_page: https://openlibrary.org/help/faq/reading-log (fetched 2026-08-29T08:39:44.918690+00:00, sha f138af6ea308)
  - site_page: https://openlibrary.org/developers/api (fetched 2026-08-29T08:39:44.924294+00:00, sha 7eb1fcafb63f)
  - site_page: https://openlibrary.org/help/faq/editing (fetched 2026-08-29T08:39:44.926113+00:00, sha e7c75c43513b)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.