About OttoBib

A small tool for turning a book's ISBN into a citation. Running since 2006.

Cite the edition you used

OttoBib looks up an ISBN and provides book citations in MLA, APA, Chicago, Wikipedia, and BibTeX. Use the citation in your work, copy it, or download it. Access is free and no account is required.

An ISBN identifies an edition and format. Hardbacks, paperbacks, translations, and ebooks can have different identifiers and publication details. Use the ISBN printed on the copy you read.

What a lookup can tell you

Bibliographic catalogue records provide the available title, contributors, publisher, edition, and date. Records can be incomplete or disagree. Review the result against the book and your style guide; an unavailable citation does not establish that a book does not exist.

Tools and guidance

Start with the citation generator, ISBN converter, or book citation guide. Developers can use the JSON API.

Our privacy page explains cookie-free action counts and operational logging. The citation-use page explains review and attribution.