Books · head-to-head
British National Bibliography vs PoetryDB
The British National Bibliography is the British Library's record of everything published in the UK and Ireland since 1950, now published as BIBFRAME/RDA linked open data through the multi-national "Share Family" platform. Its original bnb.data.bl.uk endpoint has been offline since the Library's October 2023 cyber-attack destroyed its digital infrastructure; the catalog has since resurfaced on a beta institutional search portal, per the Library's own service-status and metadata-services pages.
Keyless JSON API for a curated collection of roughly 3,000 English-language poems across 129 authors, queryable by author, title, line content, or poem-count/line-count filters, with matching results returned as full structured poem objects. Built and maintained as a free open-source project with no rate limits or usage tiers documented anywhere.
| British National Bibliography | PoetryDB | |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication | None | None |
| Pricing | free | free |
| Formats | RDF, HTML | JSON |
| CORS | unknown | yes |
| HTTPS | Yes | Yes |
PoetryDB supports CORS, while British National Bibliography doesn't — pick PoetryDB for direct browser calls.