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WorldCat Lookup From Amazon

Greasemonkey is an extension for Firefox that allows users (i.e., you and me) to run javascript programs of our choice, called user scripts, to change the look or behavior of web pages.

WorldCat is a service that lets you search the catalogs of libraries both nearby and around the world.

Amazon is, well, Amazon.

Atalib is a Greasemonkey script that runs on Amazon pages. It performs a search on WorldCat, and displays the result on the Amazon page, so you can see if the item is available from a library, near or far. WorldCat helpfully orders its results by distance, so you can easily determine whether the item you're interested in is available within biking distance, or if you will need to charter a jet.

atalib

To use Atalib:

  1. Get Firefox if you're not using it already.

  2. Install Greasemonkey. You'll have to restart Firefox after installing it.

  3. Download Atalib.

    Look for one of these two ways of installing the script.

    atalib_install_dialog
    atalib_install_banner

    Whichever you see, click the Install button to install Atalib.

  4. Rock the Library, 2.0-style.

It was fun to find out that a manual of Japanese etiquette is available through the Library of Congress, and that the library of the Nelson-Atkins Museum owns a copy of Introduction to the X Window System.

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 15:03

Atalib Bugs Squashed

Atalib is a greasemonkey script that adds Worldcat search results to amazon pages.

This weekend, I discovered a few bugs that needed fixing.

  1. If the name of the library contained a nonalphanumeric character, it would appear truncated in the atalib table; only the part of the name that came after the nonalphanumeric character would appear. For example, if the library's name was Texas A&M Library, it would be shown as M Library.
  2. If no distance data was provided for a library, the subsequent distances would be shifted up to fill in the gap, and the last library would be shown to have a distance of undefined. (I had no idea distances might not be provided for libraries!)

Both these bugs have been fixed in the newest version of the user script, which is available for download.

Details about the usage of atalib, and how to install it can be found on the original announcement.

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 09:38