After you've "installed" your bookmarklet by dragging it to your browser's link toolbar, you can use it to look up books at your local library. Let's say you're on a book-related site (Amazon, BN, isbn.nu) and your current page's URL includes an ISBN. (Choose a hardcover edition for best results -- see tips below.) You can click your bookmarklet to check if the book is available in your local library. The bookmarklet will invoke your library's lookup service, feed it the ISBN, and pop up a new window with the result.
The LibraryLookup project began, in December 2002, as five lists of bookmarklets for libraries using these catalog systems: Innovative, Voyager, iPac, DRA, and Talis. If you can find your library on one of those lists, it may be easier for you to drag the bookmarklet's link from there, rather than to construct a link using the bookmarklet generator. But the accuracy of those lists has decayed over time, and I'm not able to maintain them. So I recommend that you use the bookmarklet generator in preference to the static lists, as well as for those catalog systems for which there are no lists.
My Library Love Affair, chickarina.
I am so impressed by the little bookmarklet program that allows me to click a link on my toolbar while looking at a book on Amazon and immediately be taken to the page on the NYPL website to reserve the book that I cannot sleep.
Further adventures in lightweight service composition, Jon's Radio.
The next logical step was to add xISBN capability to the Greasemonkey-based version of LibraryLookup that's shown in the screencast Content, services, and the yin-yang of intermediation.
Adventures in lightweight service composition, Jon's Radio. If a book isn't available at the library, I add it to my Amazon wishlist. Then, when it becomes available at the library, it shows up in a special RSS feed that watches my Amazon wishlist. [A] small Python script orchestrates three different services. First, it queries the Amazon wishlist by way of Amazon's API. Second, it queries the OCLC's xISBN service [1, 2] to convert the single ISBN into a cluster of related ISBNs. Third, it queries my library's OPAC system for each of those related ISBNs.
Request a library book...via Amazon, 43 Folders. I still can't get over how cool this is. Jon Udell's little wizard lets you generate a bookmarklet for requesting a library book based on the Amazon page you're currently viewing. It's clearly a flawless lifehack.
cmonkey, MetaFilter. The LibraryLookup bookmarklet is, seriously, the Internet's sole redeeming quality.
One of these things is not like the other one... , Better Living Through Software. I think Jon Udell's LibraryLookup Bookmarklets represent a good example of "Smart Tag"-like technology that is done in a cooperative and non-intrusive way. Jon Udell's LibraryLookup also puts the lie to Charles Cooper's news.com piece claiming that IE dominance has thwarted innovation. Jon proved that one guy can extend the browser to do something very useful to people's lives, "semantic", and futuristic -- all without ever having to fire up a compiler.
LibraryLookup: Go to Amazon, Find Library Book, Library Journal. Jon Udell, Lead Analyst at InfoWorld's test center, didn't set out to rock the world of library technology. He just wanted to check his local library's catalog while simultaneously browsing through Amazon.com.
LibraryLookup has potential to bring Amazon browsers to your library, Library & Information Science News. I am completely blown away by this. The Shifted Librarian reported recently that information mapper Jon Udell had been playing around with a tool that would search for an ISBN at one of any number of INNOPAC-based library websites. He has since greatly enhanced it, and you can now find LibraryLookup here.
Weblogs and the Disruptive Web, Metafilter. This is just cool enough that it should be outlawed soon.
Worth Reading: Jon Udell on The Disruptive Web, NEC @ Shirky.com, a mailing list about Networks, Economics, and Culture. Jon Udell has hit the quadrafecta, having written a wonderful piece that touches four issues close to my heart: collaborative filtering, Web Services, the LazyWeb, and reputation systems.
Library Lookup: A Simple but Powerful Search Tool, Search Engine Watch.
Marian Bookmarklet, Law Library News. Fabulous! Nifty! Cool!
Genus, species, and ISBN, Jon's Radio. Jiri Ludvik has identified a new class of LibraryLookup-compatible OPACs: Talis systems. I'll go ahead and derive a service list from that page, and add Talis to the bookmarklet generator, but Jiri's contribution raises another ISBN complication.
Standards and unorthodoxy, Loosely Coupled. Even standards that are supposed to be universally agreed and ready for adoption are likely to come under renewed scrutiny, while the paradox of web services means that the simplest standards will produce the most powerful results when deployed to unorthodox ends.
The disruptive Web, InfoWorld. If you're creating a Web service that you hope will have a disruptive impact, the lessons are clear. Support HTTP GET-style URLs. Design them carefully, matching de facto standards where they exist. Keep the URLs short, so people can easily understand, modify, and trade them. Establish a blog reputation. Use the blog network to promote the service and enable users of the service to self-organize. It all adds up to a recipe for recombinant growth.
ISSNs and Z39.50, Jon's Radio. Thanks to Alf Eaton, author of HubMed, an alternative interface to the PubMed database, for noting that LibraryLookup could easily be extended to match ISSNs. I've made the change, and if you reacquire (or recreate) your Innovative or iPac bookmarklet, you can look up an article from an abstract page like this one.
Scripting an interactive service intermediary, Jon's Radio. The recent discussion about active intermediaries sent me in an unexpected direction. What I meant to do was revisit some earlier writing on web proxies, email proxies, and SOAP routing, and try to draw some conclusions. Instead, I invented another bookmarklet.
Software, Jim, but not as we know it, Loosely Coupled. As we boldy explore the new universe of service-oriented architectures, we should not be surprised if software begins to assume unfamiliar, alien forms.
Lifting skirts to let the fresh air in, Ben Hammersley. As Jon Udell showed us with his Library Lookup script, it only takes two people to make a great deal more functionality. The manic scripter with imagination, and the original author to give him the chance.
REST, Post-Modern Computing, Agile Development, Craig Johnson's Radio Weblog. REST, postmodern computing, agility, and the power of blogs ... I think it could be a movie!
Library Lookup: Web services in Action, Dan Gillmor's eJournal. Jon Udell's LibraryLookup is a brilliant demonstration of how Web services are going to evolve. I've already plugged it into my browser(s).
ISBN and LibraryLookup, Lou Brothers. Jon Udell writes about the evolution of a project which allow the linking of any ISBN item to any other ISBN item via the web...and proposes a rather unique service to resolve the non-uniqueness of book titles with the all too uniqueness of ISBNs.
Son of LibraryLookup Bookmarklet, The Shifted Librarian. Jon is still running with the concept (kudos and big thanks to him), and today he highlights the problems using ISBNs as identifiers.
LibraryLookup uses Creative Commons license, Jon's Radio. When somebody wrote yesterday asking whether the LibraryLookup code (such as it is!) was licensed for public-domain use, I realized this was the perfect opportunity to try out the Creative Commons licensing procedure. It couldn't have been any simpler -- it took all of about 10 minutes.
The evolution of cooperation, Jon's Radio. Viewing LibraryLookup through the lens of the Prisoner's Dilemma, we could say that a cooperator exposes a simple, low-coordination-cost API, and a defector withholds one.
UCSB's Aleph 500 system, brentdevries.com. I'm just happy to do my little part for UCSB and the Aleph 500 system.
AmazonLookup, Matt Croydon::postneo. A quick URL replacement in Jon Udell's LibraryLookup program allows you to go an amazon detail page from any url with a single ISBN number in it. Here it is: Amazon Lookup
Library lookup, tweneyblog. I'm a jaded tech journalist. It's not often that a new Internet service can actually make me excited. But last week I discovered one that had me grinning all afternoon. The evolution of LibraryLookup has been a joy to watch. It's a nifty, useful tool. And most importantly, it shows how clever coders, working with publicly-available information services and simple scripts, can create ad-hoc Web services applications seemingly out of thin air.
Jon Udell's Library Loookup, Way.Nu. Jon Udell has a swank little bookmarklet system, that while useful today, shows where the semantic web is going.
A Catalog of Catalogs, Cox Crow. Whoa, Nelly! Jon Udell's working on the World's Largest Library. Out of 117,418 libraries in the United States? But there are only a few catalog vendors, which eases the task of integration tremendously, provided their URIs have a consistent pattern.
LibraryLookup (iPac Libraries), Howard's Musings. I tweaked the code a little so it would handle URLs from Powell's.
I'm well impressed, Jonnosan weblog. For something that's really just a single javascript regex, it adds the proverbial shedload of value to existing web apps, in ways that the original designers never would have imagined. And here's a lookup that will open the book in O'Reilly's excellent Safari service. The link to drag and drop is here: Lookup on Safari.
[ Bibliothek ] Library Lookup, netbib weblog. Das ist sicher ein feines Angebot für die BibliothekskundInnen. Es funktioniert prima!
iPac edition and service discovery, Jon's Radio. The LibraryLookup project has added support for another vendor: epixtech. I found about 100 libraries that use their iPac system, and I've posted the bookmarklets.
Hunting Down Books , Doing the Work. Jon Udell has created some interesting bookmarklets for searching libraries. Apparently, quite a few libraries have ISBN lookup capabilities. Jon developed a piece of code that attaches itself to your browser menu bar. Then, when you are on, say, Amazon looking for a book, you can click on the bookmarklet and it will find out if your local library has it. Cool. The companies that sell library software don't like it and, most likely, neither does Amazon. Yet, this is an excellent example of using simple code to produce convenient, helpful results.
A Web of Libraries, Gotzeblogged. Because we have bibliotek.dk which is not a library, but a database of holdings in all danish libraries, the bookmarklet searches all public libraries at once. Via bibliotek.dk, you can send an order to your local library (regardless of which library owns the material) and after a few days pick up the material from your own library.
LibraryLookup, Catalogablog. This has been reported elsewhere, but is too slick not to mention again. Users of Innovative systems can have a bookmarklet on their tool bar to search their local system. Have this available for your patrons.
LibraryLookup, studio id, Michael Angeles. Jon Udell of InfoWorld has posted an excellent bookmarklet that integrates browsing a book site (Amazon, BN, All Consuming) with library online public access catalogs. Nice. Our systems librarian just installed this for our company's OPAC as well.
LibraryLookup, Voyager edition, Jon's Radio. Voyager libraries now supported.
You have to try this one!, Off the Shelves. This is a really cool bookmarklet. To use it, click on the Library Lookup link, find La Grange Park Library (or any of the Suburban Library System libraries), drag the link to your browser's toolbar. That's it!
The Library Lookup Project, Steve Michel. I added the shortcut to my browser and must have used it half a dozen times already. It really works well for me. I frequently look at books on Amazon, then bounce over to my library site to see if they have it. This makes that really easy.
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Bookfinder bookmarklet, Gotzeblogged. Phil Windley points to Jon Udell's Library Lookup bookmarklets, which is a genious small piece of software. Danes can now use: Bibliotek.dk
LibraryLookup considered harmful?, Jon's Radio. Curious why the list I used wasn't easy for Dylan to find, I went back and had another look at www.iii.com. And guess what? It's changed.
Very cool library bookmarklet, Dale Pike. UNC Charlotte is included. It works like a charm!
LibraryLookup, LibraryPlanet.com. The coolest thing in libraries online in the last couple of days is Jon Udell's LibraryLookup. Utilizing the power of bookmarklets, he set up a whole bunch of searches that work with Innovative Interfaces products. Jeff Pomerantz added Syracuse to the mix.
Finns boken på mitt bibliotek?, Erik Stattins, myMarkup.net. Det är lika enkelt som det är smart! Låt oss säga att du är inne på Bokus, AdLibris, Amazon eller Barnes & Noble och hittar en bok du vill läsa, men inte nödvändigtvis köpa. Med hjälp av Jon Udells "bookmarklet" är det lätt att snabbt slå upp om boken finns på något bibliotek i Sverige. Man behöver faktiskt inte köpa alla böcker man vill läsa. Avgiftsfria fjärrlån är lagstiftade. Här är några bookmarklets till svenska bibliotek och kataloger:
Kolla bibliotek.se!
Kolla Libris!
Kolla KIB & Södertörns högskola!
Kolla KTHB!
Kolla LIUB
Linking Amazon to your nearest library, NHS eLibraries. The button runs a small script called a bookmarklet which invokes a search of your local library and pops up a result. Wonderful.
More on Jon Udell's LibraryLookup Bookmarklet, The Shifted Librarian. An update on Jon Udell's LibraryLookup project to create bookmarklets for searching Innovative catalogs. It totally rocks!
URI [University of Rhode Island] is supported, Brian Jepson's Radio Weblog.
Finding Books at the SLC Public Library, Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog. This is really too cool for words. Try it out. Jon has a list of other libraries and some notes on how it works, once again demonstrating that the power of the Internet can be had in bits and pieces, a few scripts at a time.
Blogging your way to the library, FreelancePropaganda. Initially Syracuse wasn't on the list (because the county is not on the "Innovative System" meta-catalogue. Jeff Pomerantz, an IST PhD, took care of that, fixing up the script so that it does a lookup to search Onadaga libraries. Just drag it up to your toolbar, select an ISBN and check if it is in the local library system.
A library services experiment, Jon's Radio.
A den of pirates, Jon's Radio.
Amazon and the local library, Jon's Radio.
