One of the tools used to build the Bestselling Books Project is the Open Library API where the team manages to find all of the information needed. It’s part of the internet archives where you can find every books in the world.
It’s incredibly important to Digital Humanities as the internet archives allows for all books to be found in just a few searching or a click of a button. Digital Humanities is about expanding upon what humanity can accomplish, and the Open Library API creates a way to archive every books in existence to be found. Alongside additional data that can be found such as authors, editions of the books, and subject names. Without the site, books can end up lost and unable to be found. You can possibly get recommendations from other people, but there is only so much knowledge they can have nor may even learn the books’ existence.