This book is the first half of The Python Library Reference for Release 3.6.4, and covers chapters 1-18. The second book may be found with ISBN 9781680921090. The original Python Library Reference book is 1920 pages long. This book contains the original page numbers and index, along with the back sections fully intact.

While reference-index describes the exact syntax and semantics of the Python language, this library reference manual describes the standard library that is distributed with Python. It also describes some of the optional components that are commonly included in Python distributions.

Python's standard library is very extensive, offering a wide range of facilities as indicated by the long table of contents listed below. The library contains built-in modules (written in C) that provide access to system functionality such as file I/O that would otherwise be inaccessible to Python programmers, as well as modules written in Python that provide standardized solutions for many problems that occur in everyday programming. Some of these modules are explicitly designed to encourage and enhance the portability of Python programs by abstracting away platform-specifics into platform-neutral APIs.