Open Library is the main data source for Bookwyrm for book data. Bookwyrm is an application in the Fediverse that can be used to find and write reviews of books. I wouldn't see that as a contradiction.
this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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I think they have different use cases. OL may have a more consistent library, but Bookwyrm has the (social) features im looking for in a book app.
Personally I add books to OL and then import to BW.
Considering who is behind it, I just use Open Library. In particular because like you say, their actual data is much more useful.
Who is behind bookwyrm and why is that a reason to not use it?
Other way around. Open Library is part of the internet archive. Given it's also vastly superior in quality and has tools to maintain and administrate the data, I very much prefer it over alternative offerings. If Bookwyrm at least had a curation/maintainence team or support group or something, and not everyone could just nilly-willy add duplicates of existing entries, then I could see more use for it.
But like others have said, it's also a bit of a different use case. If you want to pull data, definitely do it from OL. They're the same source Bookwyrm uses for its main data import, after all.