Vinkius
Open Library Extended

Open Library Extended MCP for AI. Search Millions of Books, Authors, and Works.

Claude Claude
ChatGPT ChatGPT
Cursor Cursor
Gemini Gemini
Windsurf Windsurf
VS Code VS Code
JetBrains JetBrains
Vercel Vercel
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Works with every AI agent you already use

…and any MCP-compatible client

Open Library MCP on Cursor AI Code EditorOpen Library MCP on Claude Desktop AppOpen Library MCP on OpenAI Agents SDKOpen Library MCP on Visual Studio CodeOpen Library MCP on GitHub Copilot AI AgentOpen Library MCP on Google Gemini AIOpen Library MCP on Lovable AI DevelopmentOpen Library MCP on Mistral AI AgentsOpen Library MCP on Amazon AWS Bedrock

How this MCP server connects to your AI agent

Open Library Extended connects your AI client to a massive academic and literary database, letting you search millions of records.

It lets you find books by ISBN, pull full author bibliographies, or explore niche user-created reading lists—all without leaving your chat window.

What AI agents can do with Open Library Automation

Get author

Retrieves detailed information for a specific author.

Get author works

Lists all published works associated with an author's profile.

Get books by bibkeys

Looks up book records using standard identifiers like ISBN, OCLC, or LCCN.

+ 14 more capabilities included
Search for Books and Authors

Find titles, authors, and works using keywords, filters, or standard identifiers.

Retrieve Author Biographies and Works

Get a specific author's profile details and the complete list of books they wrote.

Identify Book Versions by Code

Look up book data using industry-standard identifiers like ISBN, OCLC, or LCCN.

Analyze Literary Works and Editions

Distinguish between a conceptual work (the idea) and its physical editions (the printing).

Browse Curated Reading Lists

Discover books organized into public lists created by other users or subjects.

Included with Plan

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AI Agent

What AI agents can do with Open Library Extended MCP Server: 17 Tools for Academia

These tools let your AI client access every function of the Open Library database—from searching books to retrieving specific author works and editions.

Make your AI actually useful.

Add this MCP to Claude, Cursor, or Windsurf and your AI stops guessing. It gets real tools to look things up, take action, and handle the stuff you keep doing by hand.

Start using Open Library on Vinkius

Get Author

Retrieves detailed information for a specific author.

Get Author Works

Lists all published works associated with an author's profile.

Get Books By Bibkeys

Looks up book records using standard identifiers like ISBN, OCLC, or LCCN.

Get Edition

Gets specific details for one physical printing (Edition) of a book.

Get List Editions

Finds all the editions that belong to a particular user-created list.

Get List Metadata

Retrieves general descriptive metadata for a specific book list.

Get List Seeds

Gets the actual items (seeds) contained within a user's public reading list.

Get Recent Changes By Date

Checks for database changes that occurred on one specific date.

Get Recent Changes

Accesses a stream of recent modifications across the entire Open Library database.

Get Subject

Fetches books related to a given academic subject tag, like 'science fiction'.

Get User Books

Retrieves the public reading log for any specified patron.

Get User Lists

Lists all book collections or lists created by a specific user.

Get Work Editions

Fetches all the specific physical printings (Editions) of a given conceptual Work.

Get Work

Gets details for the abstract literary work, separate from any single edition.

Search Authors

Searches the database to find matching authors by name or criteria.

Search Books

Searches the entire catalog for books using keywords and filters.

Search Lists

Searches for user-created book lists across the platform.

Security and governance baked right in.

Pick your AI client below to get set up. Just create a Vinkius account, subscribe, and you're instantly up and running. We handle the entire backend infrastructure, delivering out-of-the-box support for HTTPS Streamable, SSE, and OAuth2—zero messy routing required.

Claude AI

Claude AI

1

Open Claude Settings

Go to claude.ai, click your profile icon, then navigate to Customize → Connectors.

2

Add Custom Connector

Click the "+" button and select Add custom connector. Paste your Vinkius endpoint URL:

https://edge.vinkius.com/[YOUR_TOKEN_HERE]/mcp

Replace [YOUR_TOKEN_HERE] with your token from cloud.vinkius.com. For OAuth-protected servers, expand Advanced settings to add credentials.

3

Start a conversation

Open a new chat. The Open Library Extended integration is available immediately — no restart needed.

Choose How to Get Started

Build a custom MCP for your own tools, or connect a ready-made integration from our catalog.

Build Your Own

Turn any API into an MCP. Import a spec, define Agent Skills, or deploy with MCPFusion.

  • Import from OpenAPI, Swagger, or YAML specs
  • Create Agent Skills with progressive disclosure
  • Deploy to edge with MCPFusion framework
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  • Publish to catalog or keep private
Start building

Make Your AI Do More

Start with Open Library, then connect any of our 5,100+ other servers whenever your AI needs more. One click, no limits.

  • Use this MCP plus 5,100+ others, all in one place
  • Add new capabilities to your AI anytime you want
  • Every connection is secured and compliant automatically
  • Track usage and costs across all your servers
  • Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and more
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Open Library Extended MCP server cover

Independent Platform Disclaimer: Vinkius is an independent platform and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, verified by, or otherwise authorized by Open Library. All third-party trademarks, logos, and brand names are the property of their respective owners. Their use on this website is strictly for informational purposes to identify service compatibility and interoperability.

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Built on the Model Context Protocol (MCP) for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and more

The Model Context Protocol standardizes how applications expose capabilities to LLMs. Instead of operating in isolation, your AI gains direct access to external platforms, live data, and real-world actions through secure, standardized connections.

This connection provides 17 powerful capabilities that interface natively with Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and other compatible AI platforms. No middleware. No custom integration required.

Finding book details shouldn't require checking five different databases., Solved with Vinkius AI Gateway

Today, finding a single accurate citation for an author means juggling multiple academic sites. You might check WorldCat for the general idea, then hit Google Books to find an edition, and finally cross-reference library catalogs just to get the correct ISBN or LCCN—it's slow, messy copy-pasting.

With this MCP server, you ask your agent one question: 'Give me the details for that source.' The agent handles the complexity. It runs `get_books_by_bibkeys` internally and hands you a clean data packet with all the necessary metadata.

Open Library Extended MCP Server provides full author profiles.

Before, if you found an interesting book by Author X, you'd have to open a new tab and search for 'Author X bibliography' or manually look up their works on Wikipedia. You'd never get the complete picture in one place.

Now, your AI client runs `get_author` and then immediately follows up with `get_author_works`. It stitches together the author's profile data with a definitive list of all their known published titles. That’s the whole career, instantly.

What your AI can actually do with this

Open Library Extended connects your AI client to a massive academic and literary database. You can query millions of records covering everything from classic novels to highly specialized scientific papers without leaving your chat window.

Searching Books and Authors

When you need general book or author information, start with search_books to look through the entire catalog using keywords and filters like language or publication date. To find a specific person who wrote books, use search_authors to search the database by name or other criteria. For deep dives on people, get_author pulls up all the detailed information associated with an author's profile, while get_author_works lists every single book published by that person.

Identifying Specific Book Versions and Works

You can pinpoint books using industry-standard codes. Running get_books_by_bibkeys lets you look up records instantly using identifiers like ISBN, OCLC number, or LCCN. If you want general details for one specific physical copy, use get_edition to get data on that single printing. Separately, get_work fetches the abstract literary concept—the idea itself—which is different from any actual edition.

To see every possible printed version of a conceptual Work, run get_work_editions. You can also narrow your search by topic; get_subject finds books related to a specific academic tag, like 'science fiction.'

Analyzing Collections and User Activity

The platform lets you explore curated reading lists. You can use search_lists to find user-created book collections across the platform. If you know which list it is, get_list_metadata pulls up general descriptive details about that collection's theme or purpose. To see exactly what books are in a public reading list, run get_list_seeds; meanwhile, get_list_editions finds all the specific printings belonging to one of those curated lists.

If you wanna check out someone else’s taste, get_user_lists shows every collection created by a patron, and if that user has public logging enabled, get_user_books pulls their entire reading log.

Tracking Database Changes Across the Board

The server gives you tools to monitor data movement. If you need to see everything that changed in the database recently across all records, use get_recent_changes. You can narrow that down by checking only modifications that happened on a single specific day using get_recent_changes_by_date.

Structuring Your Research Flow

Overall, you'll find that combining these tools gives you total control. For instance, if you know an author and want to see all their works, you run get_author followed by get_author_works. If you start with a book code, running get_books_by_bibkeys gets you the data, but then you might use get_work_editions if you suspect there are other printings out there.

You'll also find that tracking collections requires two steps: first using search_lists, and then drilling down with get_list_seeds or get_list_metadata. This system lets your agent tackle complex literary research by accessing individual author profiles, abstract works, specific editions, entire user logs, and the latest database changes.

Built · Hosted · Managed by Vinkius Open Library Extended - Search Books & Authors with AI
Server ID 019e5d3f-7e2d-7370-a507-3e0803b87b5f
Vinkius Inspector
Compliance Grade A+
Score 98.33/100
Vinkius Inspector Badge — Score 98.33/100

Questions you might have

How do I find books by ISBN using get_books_by_bibkeys? +

You pass a string formatted like 'ISBN:xxxx' to get_books_by_bibkeys. This tool instantly verifies the book record using that industry code, giving you all the metadata attached.

What is the difference between get_work and get_edition? +

get_work describes the abstract literary idea (the text itself). get_edition gives details for a specific physical printing of that work, including year or publisher.

Can I find books in a user's list using get_list_seeds? +

Yes. If you know the ID of a book list, get_list_seeds retrieves the actual titles (the seeds) that the user added to that collection.

Do I need search_books or get_subject for genre searching? +

search_books is best for keyword matching. Use get_subject when you want books grouped by a specific, predefined academic topic or tag (like 'love' or 'history').

How do I find out what an author wrote? +

First, use search_authors to get the Author ID. Then, pass that ID into the get_author_works tool. This guarantees you pull all known works for that specific creator.

How do I use `get_recent_changes` to track modifications across the Open Library database? +

This tool provides a log of record modifications. You can monitor when books, authors, or works change metadata, which is useful for tracking data integrity over time.

What specific details does `get_list_metadata` return about a user-created list? +

It provides structured information about the collection itself. You get details like the list's name, owner, and creation date without having to fetch all the individual item seeds first.

If I need books that match both a subject category and an author, should I run `get_subject` or `search_authors` first? +

You must execute the queries in sequence. Run one tool (e.g., get_subject) to narrow down results by ID, then pass those IDs into a secondary search function for precise filtering.

Can I look up a book if I only have its ISBN? +

Yes! Use the get_books_by_bibkeys tool and provide the ISBN (e.g., 'ISBN:0451526538'). The agent will return the book metadata associated with that specific identifier.

How do I see all the different versions or publications of a specific book? +

You can use the get_work_editions tool with a Work ID (like 'OL27258W'). This will list the various physical editions and formats linked to that core literary work.

Can I search for authors by their name instead of an ID? +

Absolutely. Use the search_authors tool with a name query. Once you find the correct author, you can use their ID with get_author or get_author_works for more details.

Built & Managed by Vinkius 30s setup 17 tools

We've already built the connector for Open Library Extended. Just plug in your AI agents and start using Vinkius.

No hosting. No infrastructure. No complex setup.
All 17 tools are live and waiting. You're up and running in seconds.

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