OK, so here’s the coolest thing. I like to go to the public library. But I don’t like to actually browse at the library. Half the time, the book I want isn’t even at the branch I frequent. I like to browse for books on Amazon, and then reserve them using the library’s online system. They notify me when my books are available at my branch via email, and I breeze by the circulation desk, turn in the old, and pick up the new. I thought I was really slick for browsing this way, until I ran across an even better way to do it.

I used to browe at Amazon, make a list, then search the library’s site to see if they have the book. No more! Now I just browse Amazon and click a bookmarklet on my toolbar that magically opens a new window with the book on the SA Public Library site. I know in short order with no additional searching if our library has the book. From there, I just put it on hold and the wizards at the library email me when it’s waiting for me at the front desk. Here’s instructions on how you can do this too!

First off, a “bookmarklet” is a button on the top of your browser - sometimes call the “shortcut bar”. There’s usually a row of them. You can add to them simply by dragging an icon from either the web page you’re on or from the address bar of your browser. Bookmarklets are handy to put up there for sites you visit frequently.

This bookmarklet will invoke your library’s lookup service, feed it the ISBN, and pop up a new window with the result. Let’s say you’re on a book-related site (Amazon, BN, isbn.nu, All Consuming, possibly others), and a book’s info page is your current page. You can click your bookmarklet to check if the book is available in your local library. It works best if you’re looking at the hardbound version of the book, and the ISBN needs to be in the URL (web address). The window will pop up BEHIND the one you’re looking at (at Amazon, for example), so you’ll need to use ALT-TAB to quickly swap to it.

I use Firefox, and this is what the top of my browser looks like:

To get this button on your browser, just drag this link up to where you would like it on your shortcut bar: SA Public Library.

OK, let’s say you don’t use the San Antonio Public Library, but you want to do the same thing. No problem - just visit Jon Udell’s blog and use his tool to generate a bookmarklet for your library.