books/work_details

Get details for a work (the abstract book) by its Open Library work ID.

0.1 credits / call ($0.0001)

charged on success

What it does

Returns the work record for a book: title, description, subjects, author references, and cover IDs. A "work" is the abstract book; specific editions hang off it.

Primary use cases

Fetching the description and subjects for a book found via search.
Resolving the author and subject references for a work.

Good to know

Pass just the work ID (e.g. "OL45883W"), not the full "/works/" path. Get it from the key field in search results.

Parameters

work_idstringrequired

Open Library work ID, e.g. "OL45883W".