Categories › Knowledge & Everyday › Research, papers & reference data
Search 15K rare pre-modern texts translated to English: philosophy, religion, science, literature.
Remote server: your requests and data go to sourcelibrary.org. Claude Code: claude mcp add --transport http source-library https://sourcelibrary.org/api/mcp · Claude app: Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector.
The tools this server listed when we connected to it, in its own words.
search_library — RETURNS A LIST OF BOOKS (works on a topic) — NOT passages. PICK THIS to discover which works exist on a subject. → For quotable text use seasearch_translations — RETURNS QUOTABLE PASSAGES (page-level snippets + citation URLs), matched by KEYWORD/term. PICK THIS to find a quote or textual evidence on asearch_concept — RETURNS QUOTABLE PASSAGES matched by MEANING (cosine similarity on Gemini embeddings, 768d) — paraphrases and adjacent phrasings match even search_within_book — SEARCHES INSIDE ONE BOOK (requires book_id). PRIMARILY KEYWORD: it runs a lexical search over the book's pages plus a narrow scoped-semanticlist_books — BROWSES/FILTERS THE CATALOG by metadata (canonical author via author_id, title/author/summary words via search, language, category, year ranget_book — READ PIPELINE step 1 — DISCOVER. START HERE for any named work or author. Returns the book's AI-generated summary, chapter list, edition metget_book_text — READ PIPELINE step 2 — READ. Read a book's text. Call get_book first (step 1) for the chapter list, then come here. Preferred: use the chaptget_quote — READ PIPELINE step 3 — CITE. Get the exact verbatim text of a single page plus its citation apparatus. ALWAYS use before putting text in quolist_editions — Every edition of one work that the library holds — the other witnesses to the same text, across languages and centuries. Give it a book_id (check_duplicate — DOES THE LIBRARY HOLD THIS WORK? Call this BEFORE telling the user the library lacks a book, and before proposing one for acquisition. A misget_quotes — READ PIPELINE step 3 — CITE, in batch. Get verbatim text + citation_link for SEVERAL pages of a single book in one round-trip, to assemble asearch_images — Search 200,000+ historical illustrations, emblems, engravings, diagrams, AND 24,000+ artworks (paintings, prints, sculptures). Filter by typlist_image_facets — List the legal values of search_images' type, subject, figure and symbol filters, with how many images carry each. Those filters are EXACT ssubmit_feedback — Submit feedback, bug reports, or feature requests to the Source Library team. Before proposing NEW functionality, read https://sourcelibraryshare_findings — Share a research dossier back to the Source Library team — a title, an optional summary, and an ordered list of citations (the passages yourpropose_collection — Propose a themed collection of books to the Source Library team — a title, a rationale (why these books belong together and what thread connstart_review_shift — Start a volunteer REVIEW SHIFT: the user lends their Claude (you) to Source Library to check one book against its scans: by default its 10-pcontinue_review_shift — Next page of the book being reviewed. Call it straight after finishing a page until the check or the stretch the user chose is done, and agastart_blind_check — OPTIONAL lane, only for a user who reads the original language and asks to judge pages themselves: up to five random pages from different bosubmit_page_review — Record the verdict on one page of a shift. mode "book-run" (start_review_shift / continue_review_shift): the verdict and findings are YOURS,propose_correction — During a review shift, propose a correction to a page's transcription (field "ocr") or English (field "translation"). A correction is a listget_locus — Turn a CANONICAL CITATION into the actual leaves that carry it. Aristotle is cited by Bekker number (1094a8, 1447a) and Plato by Stephanus nNot tested by KitScout yet. When our harness runs it, pros, cons and the tasks we tried appear here, with the date and evidence.