OPDS Catalog

Libris includes a built-in OPDS catalog server. Any OPDS-compatible e-reader can browse the library and download books directly over HTTP, without going through the web UI.

The catalog is served from <host>/opds. Access uses HTTP Basic authentication with the realm Libris OPDS. Clients that support OPDS send the credentials automatically on every browse and download request.

Supported Readers

Any reader that speaks OPDS can connect, including:

• KOReader — open-source reader for Kindle, Kobo, Android, and more.
• Calibre — desktop library manager with OPDS browsing.
• Marvin — iOS reading app.
• Thorium — desktop reader (Windows, macOS, Linux).
• Foliate — Linux reader.

Other OPDS clients work the same way: point them at the catalog URL and sign in with your account email and an app password.

Connecting a Reader

There is no separate OPDS username and password. You sign a reader in with your own account email and an app password — a per-device credential you mint yourself, so your account password never goes onto a device.

1. Go to Settings → Connections in the Libris web UI.
2. In App Passwords, name the device (for example Kobo Clara) and click Create app password. Copy the value; it is shown once and cannot be retrieved later.
3. In the OPDS Catalog section just below, copy the catalog URL (<host>/opds).
4. In your reader, add a new OPDS catalog. Enter the URL, your account email as the username, and the app password as the password.

Only the password component is checked, so the username is informational — but put your real address there anyway, because it is what makes the entry readable when you come back to it.

Mint one app password per device. Revoking a row from the Connections tab unpairs exactly that device, on its very next request, and leaves your browser sessions and every other reader alone. Losing a device therefore costs you one credential rather than all of them.

A banned account's devices stop too

Banning a user disables every app password they hold, and unbanning does not re-enable them. A reader that was paired at ban time needs a fresh app password afterwards. See Banning.

What You Can Browse

The root catalog (<host>/opds) is a navigation feed with these entries:

• New Arrivals (/opds/new) — recently added books.
• All Books (/opds/books) — a paginated feed of every organized book, sorted alphabetically by title.
• Genres (/opds/genres) — books grouped by genre.
• Series (/opds/series) — books grouped by series.
• Languages (/opds/languages) — books grouped by language. Only the languages actually present in the library are listed, rendered as full names from their ISO 639-1 codes.
• Search — full-text search exposed as an OpenSearch descriptor (/opds/search), so readers that support search can query the catalog from within the app.

There is no top-level "by author" feed. A per-author acquisition feed exists at /opds/authors/{slug}, where {slug} is a URL-friendly form of the author name. Author names appear on each book entry; reaching an author feed depends on the reader following that path.

Downloading Books

Books are downloaded directly from the catalog. Only EPUB is a recognized download format — it is the only format mapped to an OPDS acquisition link (application/epub+zip). The same credentials used for browsing apply to downloads; readers send them automatically.

The Catalog Is Shared

The OPDS catalog serves the shared organized library. Every authenticated OPDS user sees the entire catalog, regardless of who uploaded each book. The feed is filtered only by status (organized books), not by uploader.

Only the credential is per user. Reading progress, manual reading-status overrides, and the other per-account connections remain private, but the set of books available over OPDS is the same for everyone.