Google Books Block

Search the Google Books catalog and retrieve detailed information about a specific volume. Authenticate with a Google Books API key. Use this block whenever a workflow needs to look up books by keyword, author, ISBN, or subject, or needs to pull full metadata for a known volume ID.

Overview

When to Use

• Search the Google Books catalog by title, author, publisher, subject, or ISBN keyword syntax.
• Retrieve the total number of matching results and a paged list of volume objects.
• Fetch full metadata (title, authors, description, cover images, identifiers) for a specific volume by its ID.
• Chain search results into a second block that calls Get volume to enrich individual entries.
• Pass volume IDs surfaced by an Agent block into this block to resolve rich book details.
• Build reading-list, bibliography, or book-recommendation workflows that need authoritative Google Books data.

Configuration

Operation

Select which Google Books API action to perform. The value you pick determines which other fields appear.

Query (q) — Search volumes only

Type: short-input | Required for search: yes

The search query string sent to the Google Books API. Supports Google Books keyword operators:

• intitle: — restrict to words in the title (e.g. intitle:flowers)
• inauthor: — restrict to an author name (e.g. inauthor:keyes)
• inpublisher: — restrict to a publisher
• subject: — restrict to a subject category
• isbn: — look up by ISBN

You may combine operators (e.g. intitle:flowers inauthor:keyes) or use a plain keyword.

Shown when Operation is google_books_search_volumes.

Max Results (maxResults) — Search volumes only

Type: short-input | Required: no | Default: 10

Maximum number of volumes to return. The Google Books API accepts values from 1 to 40. Leave blank to use the default of 10.

Shown when Operation is google_books_search_volumes.

Volume ID (volumeId) — Get volume only

Type: short-input | Required for get: yes

The unique Google Books volume identifier (e.g. zyTCAlFPjgYC). You can obtain this from the id field inside a result object returned by the Search volumes operation.

Shown when Operation is google_books_get_volume.

Google Books API Key (apiKey)

Type: short-input (password) | Required: yes

Your Google Books API key. Store it as a workspace secret and reference it with {{GOOGLE_BOOKS_API_KEY}} to avoid embedding credentials in the workflow definition.

Shown for all operations.

Inputs & Outputs

Inputs

• operation (string) — Operation to perform (google_books_search_volumes or google_books_get_volume)
• apiKey (string) — Google Books API key
• q (string) — Search query (used by Search volumes)
• maxResults (number) — Maximum number of results (used by Search volumes)
• volumeId (string) — Volume ID to retrieve (used by Get volume)

Outputs

• data (json) — Result object or array from Google Books. For Search volumes this is an array of volume objects; for Get volume this is a single volume object.
• metadata (json) — Response metadata. For Search volumes: { totalItems, count }. For Get volume: { id }.

Tools

Google Books Search Volumes (google_books_search_volumes) — Queries the Google Books Volumes list endpoint (GET https://www.googleapis.com/books/v1/volumes) with a search string and returns up to maxResults matching volume objects plus aggregate totals. Supports all Google Books keyword operators (intitle:, inauthor:, isbn:, etc.).

Google Books Get Volume (google_books_get_volume) — Fetches a single volume resource from GET https://www.googleapis.com/books/v1/volumes/{volumeId} and returns the full volume object along with its id in the metadata.

YAML Example

Search volumes

google_books_1:
  type: google_books
  name: "Search Google Books"
  inputs:
    operation: "google_books_search_volumes"
    apiKey: "{{GOOGLE_BOOKS_API_KEY}}"
    q: "intitle:deep work inauthor:newport"
    maxResults: 5
  connections:
    outgoing:
      - target: next-block-id

Get volume

google_books_2:
  type: google_books
  name: "Get Book Details"
  inputs:
    operation: "google_books_get_volume"
    apiKey: "{{GOOGLE_BOOKS_API_KEY}}"
    volumeId: "{{google_books_1.data[0].id}}"
  connections:
    outgoing:
      - target: next-block-id