About Open Library
Search 20M+ book records, look up works and editions, find authors and their works, and search inside the full text of scanned books. Records link to Open Library and, where available, to a readable copy.
Questions you can ask Open Library
Type them into Kahubi’s chat once Open Library is connected.
“List the books Selma Lagerlöf published, with the first edition year of each.”
What comes back: The author’s works with first publication years and edition counts, linked to Open Library.
“Which scanned books contain the phrase "scientific management" before 1920?”
What comes back: Books with matching passages from the full-text search, and links to a readable copy where one exists.
Open Library MCP tools
The 10 tools the Open Library server offers to Kahubi. The assistant picks the right one for each question.
openlibrary_search_booksFull-text book search across Open Library works.
openlibrary_search_insideSearch the full text of books scanned by the Internet Archive - the "which book contains this passage?" lookup that the metadata tools cannot answer.
openlibrary_get_workFetch a work by Open Library Work ID (OL…W).
openlibrary_get_editionsList editions of a work - different publishers, languages, formats, and print runs.
openlibrary_get_editionResolve one or more editions by identifier: ISBN-10, ISBN-13, OCLC, LCCN, or Open Library Edition ID (OL…M).
openlibrary_search_authorsSearch Open Library authors by name.
openlibrary_get_authorFetch author detail by Open Library Author ID (OL…A).
openlibrary_get_author_worksList works by an author.
Show 2 more
openlibrary_get_subjectBrowse works by subject.
openlibrary_get_cover_urlConstruct a cover image URL for a book or author photo without fetching the image.
Using Open Library in Kahubi
- Community server. An open-source server maintained by the MCP community. Kahubi tests it with live queries before listing it and health-checks it regularly.
- Cited, checkable answers. Results are treated as retrieved material and cited with the source’s own identifiers, so you can open every record the answer relied on.
- Your files stay private. Only the search the assistant writes for your question is sent to Open Library.
More archives & heritage sources
- Riksarkivet (Swedish National Archives)Search AI-transcribed handwritten records from the 1600s onward, the national archive catalogue, church books, court records and more.
- Kansallisarkisto (National Archives of Finland)Full-text search of 7.8 million transcribed pages: Finnish court records 1610–1931, crown bailiff accounts and medieval charters.
- EuropeanaSearch 50+ million digitised items from European museums, libraries and archives.
- Trove (National Library of Australia)Australian newspapers, books, images, maps and archives from the National Library of Australia.
- Libris (Kungliga biblioteket)The Swedish national union catalogue: books, journals, theses, maps and music in Swedish libraries.
- Kubhist historical newspapers (Språkbanken Korp)Full-text concordance search in digitised Swedish newspapers 1645–1926, by title and decade.