diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/metadata/opf.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/metadata/opf.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..8854de914e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/metadata/opf.py
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python2
+# vim:fileencoding=utf-8
+# License: GPLv3 Copyright: 2016, Kovid Goyal <kovid at kovidgoyal.net>
+
+from __future__ import (unicode_literals, division, absolute_import,
+                        print_function)
+
+from calibre.ebooks.metadata import parse_opf_version
+from calibre.ebooks.metadata.opf2 import OPF
+from calibre.ebooks.metadata.utils import parse_opf
+
+class DummyFile(object):
+
+    def __init__(self, raw):
+        self.raw = raw
+
+    def read(self):
+        return self.raw
+
+def get_metadata(stream):
+    if isinstance(stream, bytes):
+        stream = DummyFile(stream)
+    root = parse_opf(stream)
+    ver = parse_opf_version(root.get('version'))
+    opf = OPF(None, preparsed_opf=root, read_toc=False)
+    return opf.to_book_metadata(), ver, opf.raster_cover, opf.first_spine_item()
diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/metadata/utils.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/metadata/utils.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..7c2d9d1c3d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/metadata/utils.py
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python2
+# vim:fileencoding=utf-8
+# License: GPLv3 Copyright: 2016, Kovid Goyal <kovid at kovidgoyal.net>
+
+from __future__ import (unicode_literals, division, absolute_import,
+                        print_function)
+
+from calibre.ebooks.chardet import xml_to_unicode
+from lxml import etree
+
+PARSER = etree.XMLParser(recover=True, no_network=True)
+
+def parse_opf(stream_or_path):
+    stream = stream_or_path
+    if not hasattr(stream, 'read'):
+        stream = open(stream, 'rb')
+    raw = stream.read()
+    if not raw:
+        raise ValueError('Empty file: '+getattr(stream, 'name', 'stream'))
+    raw, encoding = xml_to_unicode(raw, strip_encoding_pats=True, resolve_entities=True, assume_utf8=True)
+    raw = raw[raw.find('<'):]
+    root = etree.fromstring(raw, PARSER)
+    if root is None:
+        raise ValueError('Not an OPF file')
+    return root
+
+