Enhancement : OpenLibrary Return 404 instead of Blank Image if Cover Not Found

[John Yorio]

3.0x

This is a request to improve using OpenLibrary for cover images.

When requesting a cover image from OpenLibrary, it will return a blank image if no cover is found. Instead of returning the default blank image, the 404 seems like it might be more helpful -- particularly if you're trying to use custom 'No cover available' images.

As it is now, it seems Evergreen displays the OpenLibrary blank image as the cover instead of seeing it as a case of no cover image being found.

According to https://openlibrary.org/dev/docs/api/covers, adding ?default=false to the request will return a 404 if no cover is found.

[Christopher Burton (cburton)]

This happens with Content Cafe as well. It seems at some point the image for that cover was saved as a 1x1px image with a defined location as such:

https://test.nflibrary.ca/opac/extras/ac/jacket/large/r/5337

So it never hits the 404 to replace the image with a 'No Cover Image' option as it thinks this 1x1 image is it's cover.