Alexandria Catalogue

The Alexandria Catalogue is an e-book download portal for Alexandria, a Nostr-based publishing platform. It allows you to browse, search, and download books (kind 30040 events) in various formats optimized for e-paper readers.

Searching for Books

You can search for books using several methods:

• Event Identifiers: Enter any Nostr event identifier to find a specific book:
  • naddr (e.g., naddr1qq...): Nostr address - the most precise identifier for a book, includes kind, author, and d tag
  • nevent (e.g., nevent1qq...): Event reference with optional author hint
  • note (e.g., note1qq...): Simple event ID reference
  • Hex Event ID: A 64-character hexadecimal event ID
• Book Metadata: Search by book information:
  • Title: Search by book title (searches in both "title" and "T" tags)
  • d tag identifier: Enter a d tag (book identifier) to find all books with that identifier. If multiple authors have published books with the same d tag, all will be shown
  • Collection: Search within publication/book collections (searches in "C" tags)
• Author search: Search by author name (e.g., "Charlotte Bronte" or "Charlotte Brontë" - both will match). The search handles accented characters and matches both exact and normalized versions.
• Pubkey search: Enter an npub (e.g., npub1...) or hex pubkey to find all books by that author or that reference that pubkey in "p" tags.

Viewing and Downloading

Once you find a book, you can:

• View as HTML: Read the book directly in your browser.
• View as EPUB: Use the built-in EPUB.js viewer to read the book in your browser.
• Download formats:
  • EPUB3: Standard EPUB format for most e-readers
  • PDF: Portable Document Format
  • HTML5: Standalone HTML file with embedded images
  • DocBook5: XML-based documentation format
  • MOBI/AZW3: Recommended for Kindle devices
  • AsciiDoc: Source format (.adoc file)
  • JSONL: Export all events in the book hierarchy as JSON Lines format

Browse Library

Visit the Browse Library page to see all available books. The library shows top-level books (not nested within other books) and supports pagination. You can expand to view up to 10,000 books.

Custom Relays

By default, the catalogue searches public Nostr relays. You can specify custom relays (ws:// or wss:// format) to search your local or private relays. Visit the Status page to configure custom relays.