---
id: isbnlib
version: "3.10.14"
license: LGPL v3
license_treatment: copyleft
maintenance: dormant
---

# isbnlib — Extract, clean, transform, hyphenate and metadata for ISBNs (International Standard Book Number).

License: copyleft · Maintenance: dormant · Downloads: 167.8K/mo

## What it is and what it does

isbnlib is a pure Python library for working with ISBN (International Standard Book Number) identifiers. It provides core functions to validate ISBNs (both ISBN-10 and ISBN-13 formats), convert between them, extract ISBN-like strings from text, and normalize or mask ISBNs for display. Beyond validation, it retrieves bibliographic metadata—title, author, publisher, year—from multiple free web services (Google Books, Wikipedia, Open Library) and can format results as BibTeX, CSL-JSON, EndNote, RefWorks, or other citation formats. The library is designed for developers building book-related applications, metadata scrapers, or citation tools.

The package has no external runtime dependencies, making it lightweight to install. It supports Python 2.7 and Python 3.6 through 3.11. The library is extensible via a plugin system for adding new metadata providers or bibliographic formatters. However, the project is dormant—the last release was in April 2023 and last commit in August 2024—so while it is marked Production/Stable, it receives no active maintenance, meaning API changes in external services may break metadata retrieval without fixes.

Use it for:

- Validate and clean ISBN strings from user input or scraped book data before storing in a database.
- Extract ISBNs from unstructured text and retrieve their metadata automatically.
- Convert ISBN-10 identifiers to ISBN-13 format for standardization or compatibility with modern book databases.
- Generate BibTeX or CSL-JSON citations from an ISBN for bibliography management or academic publishing workflows.
- Rename or organize book files using metadata extracted from ISBNs in filenames.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

isbnlib validates, cleans, transforms, and retrieves metadata for ISBN strings in both ISBN-10 and ISBN-13 formats, with support for multiple metadata providers including Google Books, Wikipedia, and Open Library.

Yes, if you need lightweight ISBN validation and metadata lookup without external dependencies. The zero-dependency design and Production/Stable status make it reliable for core ISBN operations. However, be aware that the project is dormant—metadata retrieval may fail if external services change their APIs. Best suited for internal tools, batch processing, or applications where occasional metadata failures are acceptable; not recommended for mission-critical production systems requiring active maintenance.

## Install

pip install isbnlib
uv add isbnlib
poetry add isbnlib

## Installing isbnlib

Before you install: Installation is straightforward with no runtime dependencies. The package is dormant (last release 2023-04-26, last commit 2024-08-01) but marked Production/Stable; no active maintenance signals concern for bug fixes or security updates.

License in practice: Licensed under LGPL v3 (copyleft), which requires derivative works to be distributed under the same license and grants access to source code. This is permissive for private use but constrains redistribution in proprietary software.

Quickstart:

pip install isbnlib

from isbnlib import is_isbn13, meta

if is_isbn13('9780321534965'):
    metadata = meta('9780321534965', service='goob')
    print(metadata)

Verify before relying:

- Whether metadata retrieval functions work reliably with current Google Books, Wikipedia, and Open Library APIs (services can change without library updates).
- Whether the throttling mechanism (one call per second per service) is adequate for production workloads.
- Current state of plugin ecosystem and availability of third-party metadata providers.

## Package facts

- License: LGPL v3 (copyleft)
- Python support: unspecified
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: dormant
- Downloads: 167.8K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

isbn validation and parsing, isbn metadata lookup, isbn format conversion, isbn cleaning and normalization, isbn to bibtex conversion, extract isbn from text, isbn book metadata, isbn-validation, metadata-extraction, citation-formatting

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