Books I've just discovered(after the rest of the world perhaps) the Amazon Library LookUp from Jon Udell. It's just great. Here's why: You're browsing through Amazon.co.uk and you find a book you really want to read. It's a tight month so you wonder if your local library might have a copy. But rather than having to find their site, entering the details of book and hoping, now you just have to click on a bookmarklet whilst on the book's Amazon page and it searches the online library catalogue automatically for you using the ISBN number then pops up a window with the page in the catalogue showing availability. It's hard to explain to be honest but wonderful in use.
Setting things up is bit fiddly though. If your library isn't on one of their lists it is a case of fishing through the catalogue looking for the vital URL which is being used during the search and using trial and error. But I was amazed to find I could work it out, so happy to say that if your in the Liverpool area and want to make use I've worked through the system and created a bookmarklet. Just drag the following link -- Liverpool City Libraries -- to your linkbar. Find a book on Amazon.co.uk then click this new button and you'll see what I mean. Also, because it uses the ISBN, it works around any errors with the way the title may have been entered into the system (for example LCL sometimes have issues with just including the subtitle on a book which means that something don't appear on title or keyword searches -- with this thing it doesn't matter). [via]
[Incidentally I've only tried this in the Firfox Browser and it works just fine. Should be OK in IE and Netscape though I should imagine.]
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