Open Library

Open Library (https://openlibrary.org) is an open, editable library catalog, building towards a web page for every book ever published.

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Installation
• Code Organization
• Architecture
  • The Frontend
  • The Backend
  • The Service Architecture
• Developer's Guide
• Running Tests
• Contributing
• Public APIs
• FAQs
• License

Overview

Open Library is an effort started in 2006 to create "one web page for every book ever published". It provides access to many public domain and out-of-print books, which can be read online.

• Learn more about the Open Library project
• The Vision (Dream) of OpenLibrary
• Visit the Blog

Installation

First you need to have installed Virtualbox and Vagrant.

Next, fork the OpenLibrary repo to your own Github account and clone your forked repo to your local machine:

    git clone git@github.com:YOURACCOUNT/openlibrary.git

Enter the project directory and provision + launch the dev virtual machine instance using vagrant:

  cd openlibrary
  vagrant up

You can now view your running instance by loading http://localhost:8080 in a web browser.

You can turn off the virtual machine from the host machine using:

    vagrant halt

To administrate and ssh into the vagrant dev virtual machine, type:

    vagrant ssh

Note: Remember that, thanks to vagrant and virtual box, your local folder openlibrary (where you ran vagrant up) contains exactly the same files as /openlibrary in the dev virtual machine (the one that you login to via vagrant ssh).

Help!

If running in Vagrant, but services don't seem to have been properly started -- e.g. the site works but you can't login with the default credentials -- try running vagrant up --provision.

Developer's Guide

For instructions on administrating your Open Library instance and build instructions for developers, refer the Developer's Quickstart.md document.

You can find more info digging into this old (and in part outdated) document here: http://code.openlibrary.org/en/latest/

Code Organization

• openlibrary/core - core openlibrary functionality, imported and used by www
• openlibrary/plugins - other models, controllers, and view helpers
• openlibrary/views - views for rendering web pages
• openlibrary/templates - all the templates used in the website
• openlibrary/macros - macros are like templates, but can be called from wikitext

Architecture

The Frontend

• Overview of Frontend Technologies

The Backend

OpenLibrary is developed on top of the Infogami wiki system, which is itself built on top of the web.py Python web framework and the Infobase database framework.

• Overview of Backend Web Technologies

Once you've read the overview of OpenLibrary Backend technologies, it's highly encouraged you read the developer primer which explains how to use Infogami (and its database, Infobase):

• Infogami Developer Tutorial

The Service Architecture

• Overview of OpenLibrary Service Architecture

Running tests

Open Library tests can be run using pytest (py.test).

Inside vagrant, go to the application base directory:

    cd /openlibrary
    make test

Integration Tests

Integration tests use the Splinter webdriver with Google Chrome. For instructions on installation requirements and running integration tests, see Integration Tests README

Contributing

We'd love your help! Choose a bug from our project board: https://github.com/internetarchive/openlibrary/projects/1

License

All source code published here is available under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3. Please see http://gplv3.fsf.org/ for more information.