Paste an ISBN-10 or ISBN-13 — get the title, author, publisher, year, page count, and cover thumbnail. Free, no signup.
How this works. The Internet Archive’s Open Library project maintains a free API keyed on ISBN. Every book with an ISBN — roughly every trade book published since 1970 — can be looked up this way. This tool calls Open Library directly.
Where to find the ISBN. Usually on the back cover next to the barcode. If the back cover is damaged, the copyright page (a couple of pages after the title page) prints the ISBN in text form. Older books have a 10-digit ISBN; newer books have a 13-digit ISBN starting with 978 or 979 — both work here.
Why an auctioneer cares. Cataloging books one at a time is one of the slowest parts of an estate sale. Barcode scanning + ISBN lookup takes it from 90 seconds a book to 15. Read Barcode to lot in three seconds.
Point the camera at the back cover; title, author, publisher, year, and cover fill in before you take the photo.
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