@pipeworx/hathitrust

Connect: https://pipeworx.io/mcp — every tool in the catalog, including @pipeworx/hathitrust’s. Install: one-click buttons

No MCP client? Skip the connection: POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_packs {"query":"..."} to find a tool below, GET /v1/tools/<name> for its schema, POST the same URL with arguments for the data — see For AI agents.

Tools: 3

HathiTrust’s digitized-book holdings by standard identifier (OCLC, LCCN, ISSN, ISBN, HathiTrust item id, catalog record number): the bibliographic record plus every scanned copy, each flagged full-view (readable online) or limited (search-only).

Tools

• lookup_by_identifier(id_type, id): records and scanned copies for one identifier.
• get_record(record_number): one catalog record with full bibliographic metadata.
• check_full_view(id_type, id): whether a readable copy exists, with reading URLs.

Auth

Keyless upstream, but accounts only on Pipeworx. The manifest row carries accountOnly: true, so the gateway refuses anonymous callers and callers that send only an X-API-Key (BYO with no account) with account_required and a link to https://pipeworx.io/signup?via=hathitrust. OAuth and paid Bearer-token accounts, x402 payers and internal traffic (X-Pipeworx-Internal, so the monitor) keep full access. The refusal happens before the pack runs, so no request reaches HathiTrust for a refused caller.

Why (Bruce ruled 2026-10-13, fleet #2964): a residential proxy pool of ~171k IPs was enumerating HathiTrust’s catalogue by OCLC number through REST /v1/tools/lookup_by_identifier, about 600k calls an hour, every IP kept under its per-IP limit. The pack had seen about 2 genuine calls a day. Per-IP limits cannot stop that shape, and an X-API-Key is never validated, so it is no identity either. The risk was HathiTrust blocking our egress for every caller. An account is the cheapest identity that cannot be minted in bulk.

Lifting it is a one-line manifest change (drop accountOnly), then node scripts/sync-pack-manifest.mjs. Ask Bruce first. The gate itself lives in workers/gateway/src/account-only.ts.

Data sources

• HathiTrust Digital Library, Bibliographic API: catalog records and per-copy rights codes.

Tools

• lookup_by_identifier — Look up HathiTrust’s digitized-book holdings by a standard identifier (OCLC, LCCN, ISSN, ISBN, HathiTrust item id, or catalog record number). Returns the bibliographic record(s) plus every scanned cop
• get_record — Get a single HathiTrust catalog record by its record number, with the full structured bibliographic metadata (titles, ISBNs, ISSNs, OCLCs, LCCNs, publish dates, record URL) and the complete list of sc
• check_full_view — Convenience check: given an identifier, report whether a readable (full-view) scanned copy exists on HathiTrust, how many copies are readable, and direct reading URLs. Keyless. Requires a free Pipewor