A c t i o n f o r L i b r a r i e s — D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 4

The Internet Connection

By Michael Sauers
Link Online Bookstore Materials to Your OPAC
There is a new Web-based utility making waves in the library tech world these days. This new utility is called LibraryLookup, and it was created by Jon Udell. LibraryLookup is a bookmarklet that allows you to automatically perform a search on your library's OPAC based upon a book that you're looking at in Amazon.com and many other online bookstores. Here's how the utility works, and how you can create one for your library.

A bookmarklet is a bookmark (or favorite for you Internet Explorer users), which instead of just pointing to a particular Web page, performs a function, sort of like a mini program. (Usually bookmarklets are short bits of JavaScript.) To get a bookmarklet to work, you first need to either find a pre-created bookmarklet or, in the case of LibraryLookup, create one of your own. Once the program has been created and turned into a hyperlink, you drag the link into your bookmarks or onto your links toolbar. Once there, all you need to do to activate the bookmarklet is to click on the newly created bookmark. I'll walk you through this process with LibraryLookup.

The LibraryLookup bookmarklet can be found on Jon Udell's blog at weblog.infoworld.com/udell/stories/2002/12/11/librarylookup.html. Once there, you have two options. You can look at the list for one of the bookmarklets already created for hundreds of libraries around the country. If your library is not on the list, you can use the online form to build a new one. Should one already exist for your library, or another library you wish to look up books in — see weblog.infoworld.com/udell/stories/2002/12/11/librarylookupInnovative.html — you need only point to the appropriate link, press and hold down your left mouse button, and then drag the link onto your links toolbar. (This assumes your links toolbar is currently visible in your browser. If it isn't, select from your browser's menu, either View|Toolbars| Links in IE or View|Show/Hide|Navigation Toolbar in Netscape.)

Sample link image

If one has not already been created to work with your OPAC, you will need to use the online form (weblog.infoworld.com/udell/stories/2002/12/11/librarylookupGenerator.html) to create a new one. For this to work, you'll need two pieces of information. First, the vendor, and in some cases the version, of your OPAC. In the case of my local library, Aurora Public Library, the OPAC is from Innovative Interface, Inc. Secondly, you will need the URL of your library's OPAC. For the Aurora Public Library, it's odyssey.aurora.lib.co.us/.

With that information in hand, I've filled out the form accordingly, naming my bookmarklet APL Lookup and then selected the Build your own LibraryLookup bookmarklet! button. You're then presented with a page with the full JavaScript program listed out (for the geekier of us) along with the newly created link that you can drag and drop onto your links toolbar.

Assuming that you built the bookmarklet correctly, here's how you use it. Browse over to Amazon.com and get yourself onto the page for a book in which you're interested. Once there, click on your new LibraryLookup bookmarklet. A new window will open (in some browsers this new window will open behind the current one) containing the results of a search of your OPAC for that book.

How exactly does this amazing little program work? Well, leaving out the technicalities of JavaScript, it looks for the ISBN of the item in the URL of the page you're looking at and, assuming it finds one, pulls the ISBN out and uses it to perform an ISBN search in your OPAC. Since the search is ISBN-based, it will not work if you're on a page where the ISBN is not included in the page's URL (pages in Amazon.com for DVDs for example) or if your OPAC does not support ISBN-based searches.

The potential of this little utility is great. I'm constantly using it while browsing through online bookstores so I can easily put books on hold in my library without having to re-perform the search myself. Once it is installed on public-access computers, you can start to show your patrons how it works and how they can add the bookmarklet to their browsers at home. If you are successful in creating a new bookmarklet for your library, be sure to submit it back to Jon Udell so he can add it to his list of existing ones and so your patrons will not have to build one of their own.

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