Book Search (Open Library) MCP Server

by invokera Your server? Claim it

answering

Book Search (Open Library) is answering right now. Last checked 15 min ago. It exposes 2 tools.

Search books and authors across Open Library, the Internet Archive open catalog.

Uptime history 49 days of history · worst day 97%

49 days agonow

98.9%

Uptime 24h

89 of 90 checks

Tools

read from the server

330 ms

Response time

average over 24h

open, no key

Access

streamable-http

Book Search (Open Library) does not always answer

Over the last week it answered 99.2% of our checks. We check every 15 minutes, so you hear about the next outage within the hour — not from your users.

Connect this server

Endpoint below is the one we actually reach during checks — not the one copied from a README. Last verified 15 min ago.

Claude Code Claude Desktop Codex Cursor VS Code

run in your terminal

claude mcp add book-search --transport http https://invokera.com/r/book-search

~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "book-search": {
      "url": "https://invokera.com/r/book-search"
    }
  }
}

~/.codex/config.toml

[mcp_servers.book-search]
url = "https://invokera.com/r/book-search"

.cursor/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "book-search": {
      "url": "https://invokera.com/r/book-search"
    }
  }
}

.vscode/mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "book-search": {
      "url": "https://invokera.com/r/book-search"
    }
  }
}

Available tools 2

Read directly from the server with tools/list, grouped by what they act on. If a tool disappears, we record the date.

authors

search_authors

Search authors by name. Returns author records (name, birth date, top work, work count) matching the query. Returns: Matching author records..

books

search_books

Search books by keyword. Full-text search across titles, authors and subjects. Keep "fields" small to avoid huge responses. Returns: Matching book records..

Endpoints

URL	Transport	State	Latency	Checked
https://invokera.com/r/book-search	streamable-http	answering	307 ms	15 min ago

Alternatives to Book Search (Open Library)

same job, measured the same way

Open Library

by 8ensmith

Search books and authors on the Internet Archive's Open Library

157 installs/wk local only

MCP Books

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Search the Internet Archive, the Library of Congress and data.bnf.fr at once, in one answer.

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Open Library MCP

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Open Library search, works, authors, editions, and ISBN.

local only

MCP Archiveorg

by smeet666

Search inside digitised books, browse the Internet Archive catalogue and read Wayback captures.

181 installs/wk local only

MCP Databnf

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Search the BnF open catalogue: authors, works, editions and links to what is digitised.

163 installs/wk local only

Book Metadata

by vetnet183

Search Google Books and Open Library for book metadata, covers, and publication info.

118 installs/wk local only

Na Openapi MCP

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National Assembly Library of Korea catalog search (books, theses, articles, bills)

local only

MCP Libraryofcongress

by smeet666

Search inside scanned US newspapers and browse the Library of Congress catalogue. No API key.

162 installs/wk local only

Book Search (Open Library) — questions

Answers built from our own checks of this server.

What can Book Search (Open Library) do?

It exposes 2 tools, read directly from the server on our last check. Among them: search_authors, search_books. The full list with descriptions is on this page — we take it from the server itself via tools/list, not from a README. How MCP servers expose tools in the first place →

Is Book Search (Open Library) working right now?

We send a real MCP handshake every 15 minutes. Over the last 24 hours 89 of 90 checks got a reply (98.9%), average response time 330 ms. The bar chart above shows every period we have measured.

How do I connect Book Search (Open Library)?

Copy the ready config from this page — we generate it for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor and VS Code, each with the file path that client actually reads. It is a remote server, so there is nothing to install — the client connects to the address.

Does Book Search (Open Library) need an API key?

No. Book Search (Open Library) completed a full MCP handshake with us as an anonymous client and listed its tools without asking for anything. All 2 of them are readable on this page. This is what we observed, not what the docs claim.

How fast is Book Search (Open Library)?

It answers our handshake in 330 ms on average, which is faster than 49% of all working MCP servers we measure. The comparison comes from our own checks across the whole registry, every 15 minutes.