Beans for Breakfast

Boing Boing linked indirectly to the LibraryLookup bookmarklet. LibraryLookup allows users to find and reserve a book on many public library’s sites from an Amazon.com book detail page or another book site. But it can easily be adapted to check any number of book sites - libraries or booksellers - against each other.

Here are a couple of ideas:

• Check BookFinder: This bookmarklet loads the BookFinder.com search page for a book. BookFinder runs searches on a dozen separate bookseller listing sites and aggregates them together into one listing. It’s one of the best bookseller sites and the first place I check when I’m looking for an out of print book.
• Big Cash for Jeff: This version isn’t very helpful. It launches an Amazon.com detail page with my Amazon Associates ID attached to it. I’d get a small kickback for referring someone who used this bookmarklet and bought something from Amazon. (Don’t use it. This one is silly.)

To use the LibraryLaunch bookmarklet or one of these variations, drag the link to your bookmark folder or bookmark bar, visit a book site, and click on the bookmark you created. Your mileage may vary. (The first book site has to use the book’s ISBN in its URL, though they doesn’t seem to work when I try launching them from the Seattle Public Library site

Update 9/29: Librarian.net linked to two other LibraryLookup variations.

• The Worldcat/Goodle Bookmarklet will load the book’s page at Worldcat. WorldCat checks the inventory of nearby libraries based on a zip code.
• The xISBN Bookmarklet checks the xISBN database for other editions of a book and includes them in the library search. The other bookmarklets mentioned here are limited to searching for one edition of a book. For example, if a user was viewing the Amazon detail page of a paperback copy of a book, the other bookmarklets would miss a hardcover editon of the same book. Unfortunately, the xISBN Bookmarklet doesn’t work in Safari.