Saturday, February 11, 2006

LibraryLookup: Check Mercer Island library for books on Amazon



You're looking for books on Amazon, but before you buy it you wonder if the same book is available at the Mercer Island library. Well, now it's super-easy to check since Jon Udell wrote a very cool mashup called LibraryLookup bookmarklet for Mercer Island Public Library.

On Internet Explorer, do this:

  1. Click the Favorites menu; then "Add to Favorites"
  2. In the Add Favorites dialog box that appears, click on "Links", then "Create in".
  3. Type a name for the bookmark in the 'Name' field: e.g. "LibraryLookup"
  4. Click Okay.
  5. Copy this text: (just drag it with the mouse, then right-click and select copy)

    javascript:var%20re=/([\/-]is[bs]n=)(\d{7,9}[\dX])/i;if(re.test(location.href)==true){var%20isbn=RegExp.$2;void(win=window.open('http://catalog.kcls.org'+'/search/i='+isbn,
    'LibraryLookup','scrollbars=1,resizable=1,
    location=1,width=575,height=500'))}pGenerator.html


  6. If the links toolbar on your browser is turned on, you should see a "LibraryLookup" icon at the top of the browser. Right-click it and select "Properties".
  7. Click into the URL field of the "Web Document" tab of the properties dialog box and paste the text you just selected.

    From now on, when you're browsing at Amazon for a book, you just click the LibraryLookup link in your browser and it will take you straight to the page for that exact title at the library.

    Note: the lookup uses the ISBN number, so this generally only works for the exact version of the title that the library would stock. Usually, this means you should be looking at the hardcover version on Amazon.

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