ConFigures

Searching for library books from within LibraryThing and Amazon

legallypuzzled figured out the (nonstandard) MAGICNUMBER URL to do an ISBN search within my local (county) library system from LibraryThing entries, so I added my library to the LibraryThing book links. Say you’re looking at the LT entry for Introduction to Knowledge Management: KM in Business. Now, if you want to know if the Montgomery County Public Libraries have a copy, you can click on Find At … Montgomery County (MD), at the left of the entry. If you have an account at LibraryThing, all you have to do to get the Find At list to include that library as a resource to check (along with Abebooks and other fine booksellers) is click on “(others/edit)” at the end of the Find At list, scroll down to the Montgomery County (MD) link, and click “add”.

But wait, there’s more! Having that URL allowed me to finally get John Udell’s LibraryLookup bookmarklet generator (search from an Amazon book for a copy at your local library) to work. I had to tweak the URL a bit, but here’s the bookmarklet: MCPL (MD). Left-click the link and drag it to your Bookmarks Toolbar in Firefox, go to any Amazon book (specific book/ISBN number, not the search results page with multiple books), and click on the MCPL-MD link to see if the library has it and place a hold.

[Update:  “Find At” is now called Buy, Borrow or Swap, and it’s now at the top right of a book’s Work page]

LibraryThing MAGICNUMBER URL: http://webcat.montgomerylibrary.org/uhtbin/cgisirsi/x/x/x/57/5?user_id=webserver&password=ibistro&searchdata1=MAGICNUMBER

Library Lookup URL for bookmarklet to search from Amazon: http://webcat.montgomerylibrary.org/uhtbin/cgisirsi/x/x/x/57/5?user_id=webserver&password=ibistro&searchdata

Vendor: sirsi

Bookmarklet text: 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://webcat.montgomerylibrary.org/uhtbin/cgisirsi/x/x/x/57/5?user_id=webserver&password=ibistro&searchdata’+'/uhtbin/cgisirsi/x/0/0/5/?searchdata1=’+isbn,’LibraryLookup’,’scrollbars=1,resizable=1,location=1,width=575,height=500′))}