book-biography
Bibliographic research agent for analyzing books and manuscripts. Builds comprehensive "book biographies" showing production context, textual transmission, related editions, and scholarly networks. Use when asked to research a book's history, find related editions, analyze manuscript transmission, or build bibliographic context.
npx skills add majiayu000/claude-skill-registry --skill book-biography-embassy-of-the-free-sourcelibrary-v2-2 --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Book Biography Bibliographic research agent that analyzes books and manuscripts in Source Library, situating them within their networks of production, transmission, and reception. ## When to Use - "Research this book's history" - "Find other editions of this text" - "Where does this manuscript fit in the tradition?" - "Build a book biography for..." - "What other versions of this text exist?" - "Analyze the transmission of..." - "Find related works to import" ## Invocation ``` /book-biography # Start interactive session /book-biography [book_id] # Research specific book /book-biography "Title or Author" # Research by name /book-biography import [book_id] # Research and import related editions ``` ## Core Disciplines This skill applies methods from: | Field | Focus | Application | |-------|-------|-------------| | **Bibliography** | Books as physical objects | Format, binding, typography | | **Codicology** | Manuscripts as objects | Scribes, materials, construction | | **Paleography** | Historical scripts | Dating, localization | | **Stemmatology** | Textual transmission | Manuscript families, variants | | **Provenance** | Ownership history | Stamps, ex libris, annotations | | **R
- When to Use
- Invocation
- Core Disciplines
- Research Workflow
- Phase 1: Identification
- Phase 2: Production Context
- Phase 3: Textual Transmission
- Phase 4: Related Works in Source Library
- Phase 5: Find External Editions
- Phase 6: Import Related Editions
- Book Biography Template
- Network Visualization
- Scoring Editions for Import
- Example Session
curl -s "https://sourcelibrary.org/api/books/BOOK_ID" | jq '{
image_source
For Gallica
curl -s "https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/ARK_ID"
For Internet Archive
curl -s "https://archive.org/metadata/IA_ID" | jq '.metadata'
For MDZ
curl -s "https://api.digitale-sammlungen.de/iiif/presentation/v2/BSB_ID/manifest"
Search by author
curl -s "https://sourcelibrary.org/api/search?q=AUTHOR&limit=20" | jq '.results[] | {id, title, author}'What does the book-biography skill do?
Bibliographic research agent for analyzing books and manuscripts. Builds comprehensive "book biographies" showing production context, textual transmission, related editions, and scholarly networks. Use when asked to research a book's history, find related editions, analyze manuscript transmission, or build bibliographic context.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add majiayu000/claude-skill-registry --skill book-biography-embassy-of-the-free-sourcelibrary-v2-2 --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From majiayu000/claude-skill-registry, a repository with 534 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.