Volunteering @ Open Library | Open Library
Source: https://openlibrary.org/volunteer
Archived: 2026-04-23 17:13
Volunteering @ Open Library | Open Library
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Last edited by
Mek
December 22, 2025 |
History
Edit
Volunteering @ Open Library
Welcome!
Open Library (
openlibrary.org
) is a non-profit,
open source
, digital public library, hosted by the
Internet Archive
, which lends millions of ebooks to millions of patrons each year. Open Library is made possible by volunteers, like you, from more than 8 different countries (US, NL, NZ, ES, IN, UK, DE, GR, CA). We believe everyone deserves a say in how their library serves our community. A library should be not only for, but of the people. Together, let's build the World's library.
If you're busy but still like to show your generosity and support our cause, consider
sponsoring a book
or making a
tax-deductible donation
.
How it Works
Open Library hosts an invite-only community chat room on Slack where book lovers and contributors can stay updated, ask questions, and collaborate towards improve OpenLibrary.org. Each week, Open Library also hosts an inclusive Community Call where members of the community may learn and participate in discussing the evolution of OpenLibrary.org.
To join our chat or participate in one of our weekly community calls, please "Choose Your Character" and click the relevant link to become involved. We're so excited to welcome you!
Opportunities
There are several ways to participate in Open Library.
Proceed to "
Choose Your Character
" to explore flexible volunteering opportunities
Submit interest
in being chosen as an
Open Library Fellow
Apply for a
Google Summer of Code
internship
Participate in
Hacktoberfest
(every October)
Choose Your Character
Want to get involved? First, lets choose your character: Which role best describes you?
Librarian
Open Library's book catalog has millions of books and thousands of data errors. Sometimes author names are misspelled, book covers are missing, or works and authors are duplicated or conflated. Librarians work together and communicate using our Slack chat channel to identify and fix data issues in our catalog. If you've ever been interested in programming scripts, Open Library's engineering team has written guides and created basic tools to empower librarians to start fixing common problems at scale. Your contributions will help patrons find the books they are looking for, ensure patrons receive accurate data, and that our engineering team has the right feedback to build thoughtful tools for librarians and our greater Open Library community. Learn more
about librarianship
at Open Library or browse our
librarian resources
.
Contribute as a
Librarian
Communications & Outreach
As a library, we're excited about how we're making our resources discoverable and accessible to book lovers worldwide. If you're interested in joining our communications team, please let us know, and we'll be in touch!
Contribute on our
Communications Team
Software Engineer
Want to write code that empowers million of book lovers to discover books they'll love? Each year
scores of volunteers
help fix bugs on OpenLibrary.org and architect new features and programs that reach thousands of patrons. For instance, the
Reading Log
has been used more than a million times by readers to track their reading progress!
Getting Started:
If you're interested in getting started, try
getting your developer environment set up
and take a look at these
good first issues
.
Ask Questions
Follow and join us on Github
,
Gitter
, and our Slack; help improve the performance, reliability, and usefulness of the Open Library website; e.g. APIs, search engine, data models (python, web.py, infogami, solr, postgres):
Contribute as a
Software Engineer
Designer & User Researcher
Does OpenLibrary.org look like it's from the the 90's? Help us fix that!
Contribute as a
Designer
Translator
Help Open Library better serve an international audience and increase availability and accessibility across the globe by contributing as a translator. To learn more, please read
our translator's wiki guide
and check out
this github issue
.
Can you help us
translate to Nepali
? Please reach out! (Issue
#1040
)
Help new patrons use Open Library by translating the website into another language:
Contribute as a
Translator
History
Created June 18, 2021
28 revisions
December 22, 2025
Edited by
Mek
March 19, 2024
Edited by
raybb
capitalize Slack
October 10, 2023
Edited by
Mek
October 10, 2023
Edited by
Mek
June 18, 2021
Created by
Drini
Copy from /volunteer
It looks like you're offline.
Donate
♥
English (en)
العربية (ar)
Čeština (cs)
Deutsch (de)
English (en)
Español (es)
Français (fr)
हिंदी (hi)
Hrvatski (hr)
Italiano (it)
Português (pt)
Română (ro)
Sardu (sc)
తెలుగు (te)
Українська (uk)
中文 (zh)
Last edited by
Mek
December 22, 2025 |
History
Edit
Volunteering @ Open Library
Welcome!
Open Library (
openlibrary.org
) is a non-profit,
open source
, digital public library, hosted by the
Internet Archive
, which lends millions of ebooks to millions of patrons each year. Open Library is made possible by volunteers, like you, from more than 8 different countries (US, NL, NZ, ES, IN, UK, DE, GR, CA). We believe everyone deserves a say in how their library serves our community. A library should be not only for, but of the people. Together, let's build the World's library.
If you're busy but still like to show your generosity and support our cause, consider
sponsoring a book
or making a
tax-deductible donation
.
How it Works
Open Library hosts an invite-only community chat room on Slack where book lovers and contributors can stay updated, ask questions, and collaborate towards improve OpenLibrary.org. Each week, Open Library also hosts an inclusive Community Call where members of the community may learn and participate in discussing the evolution of OpenLibrary.org.
To join our chat or participate in one of our weekly community calls, please "Choose Your Character" and click the relevant link to become involved. We're so excited to welcome you!
Opportunities
There are several ways to participate in Open Library.
Proceed to "
Choose Your Character
" to explore flexible volunteering opportunities
Submit interest
in being chosen as an
Open Library Fellow
Apply for a
Google Summer of Code
internship
Participate in
Hacktoberfest
(every October)
Choose Your Character
Want to get involved? First, lets choose your character: Which role best describes you?
Librarian
Open Library's book catalog has millions of books and thousands of data errors. Sometimes author names are misspelled, book covers are missing, or works and authors are duplicated or conflated. Librarians work together and communicate using our Slack chat channel to identify and fix data issues in our catalog. If you've ever been interested in programming scripts, Open Library's engineering team has written guides and created basic tools to empower librarians to start fixing common problems at scale. Your contributions will help patrons find the books they are looking for, ensure patrons receive accurate data, and that our engineering team has the right feedback to build thoughtful tools for librarians and our greater Open Library community. Learn more
about librarianship
at Open Library or browse our
librarian resources
.
Contribute as a
Librarian
Communications & Outreach
As a library, we're excited about how we're making our resources discoverable and accessible to book lovers worldwide. If you're interested in joining our communications team, please let us know, and we'll be in touch!
Contribute on our
Communications Team
Software Engineer
Want to write code that empowers million of book lovers to discover books they'll love? Each year
scores of volunteers
help fix bugs on OpenLibrary.org and architect new features and programs that reach thousands of patrons. For instance, the
Reading Log
has been used more than a million times by readers to track their reading progress!
Getting Started:
If you're interested in getting started, try
getting your developer environment set up
and take a look at these
good first issues
.
Ask Questions
Follow and join us on Github
,
Gitter
, and our Slack; help improve the performance, reliability, and usefulness of the Open Library website; e.g. APIs, search engine, data models (python, web.py, infogami, solr, postgres):
Contribute as a
Software Engineer
Designer & User Researcher
Does OpenLibrary.org look like it's from the the 90's? Help us fix that!
Contribute as a
Designer
Translator
Help Open Library better serve an international audience and increase availability and accessibility across the globe by contributing as a translator. To learn more, please read
our translator's wiki guide
and check out
this github issue
.
Can you help us
translate to Nepali
? Please reach out! (Issue
#1040
)
Help new patrons use Open Library by translating the website into another language:
Contribute as a
Translator
History
Created June 18, 2021
28 revisions
December 22, 2025
Edited by
Mek
March 19, 2024
Edited by
raybb
capitalize Slack
October 10, 2023
Edited by
Mek
October 10, 2023
Edited by
Mek
June 18, 2021
Created by
Drini
Copy from /volunteer