@asmelabs/olib

A type-safe TypeScript SDK for the Open Library API.

Status: Work in progress 🚧

Why?

Open Library is an incredible open-source project — a free, editable catalog aiming to have one web page for every book ever published. But working with its API in TypeScript is painful:

• No type safety. Response shapes are undocumented, inconsistent, and polymorphic. A description field might be a string or { type: string; value: string }. Good luck.
• No official TypeScript SDK. There's a Python client, but nothing for the JS/TS ecosystem.
• Verbose and scattered docs. You end up reading source code to understand what you'll actually get back.

@asmelabs/olib fixes all of that — Zod-validated responses, normalized types, and a clean API surface.

Install

# bun
bun add @asmelabs/olib

# npm
npm install @asmelabs/olib

# yarn
yarn add @asmelabs/olib

# pnpm
pnpm add @asmelabs/olib

Quick Start

import { createOlibClien } from "@asmelabs/olib";

const ol = createOlibClien();

// Search for books
const results = await ol.search("Fantastic Mr Fox");

// Get a work by its Open Library ID
const work = await ol.works.get("OL45804W");

// Get an edition by ISBN
const edition = await ol.editions.getByISBN("9780140328721");

// Get an author
const author = await ol.authors.get("OL34184A");

// Build a cover image URL
const coverUrl = ol.covers.book("9780140328721", "isbn", "M");
// => "https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/isbn/9780140328721-M.jpg"

Features

• 🔒 Type-safe — Full TypeScript types for all endpoints, powered by Zod schemas
• ✅ Runtime validation — Responses are parsed and validated at runtime, not just at compile time
• 🌐 Universal — Works in Node.js, Bun, Deno, and browsers (uses fetch)
• 📦 Tree-shakeable — ESM-first, import only what you need
• 🧩 Normalized responses — Polymorphic fields like description are normalized to consistent types
• 📖 Covers helper — URL builder for book covers and author photos without extra API calls

API Coverage

| Module | Endpoints | Status | | ------------ | ---------------------------------------- | ------ | | Search | Books, Authors, Subjects | ✅ | | Works | Get, Editions, Ratings, Bookshelves | ✅ | | Editions | Get, by ISBN | ✅ | | Authors | Get, Works | ✅ | | Covers | Book covers, Author photos (URL builder) | ✅ | | Subjects | Get | ✅ |

Docs

→ Full documentation coming soon.

Requirements

• TypeScript ≥ 5.0
• A fetch-compatible runtime (Node 18+, Bun, Deno, modern browsers)

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read the Contributing Guide before submitting a PR.

License

MIT

Credits

Built and maintained by Asme Labs.

Open Library is a project of the Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit.