/research/researchworks/bookmarklets/default.htm

originally: http://www.oclc.org/research/researchworks/bookmarklets/default.htm

Learn more about Bookmarklets

Got a book title from an online bookseller?  Check whether your local library has it.

Try it out

  1. Install the Bookmarklet on your computer.
    Drag a library's link to your IE browser's links toolbar. You might try, for example, Seattle Public Library.
  2. Next, find a book description at Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com (e.g. Libraries in the Ancient World; Double Fold; Lonesome Dove)
  3. Click on your new bookmark to look it up in the library's catalog.

Overview

Readers everywhere use Amazon.com (or BarnesandNoble.com, or other book sites) to find books of interest and then wonder if the book is available at the local library. We love John Udell's LibraryLookup bookmarklet which makes this easy:  when you have a book information page from an online bookseller displayed in your browser, you simply click on Jon's LibraryLookup bookmarklet to automatically check your library's OPAC for books with the same ISBN.

Jon's bookmarklet does exact matches on single ISBNs. We enhanced this concept by embedding, behind the scenes and invisible to the user, OCLC Research's xISBN lookup service. After retrieving the ISBN of the desired book from the Amazon.com page, our bookmarklet searches an OCLC Research database of related ISBNs, and then returns the ISBNs of other books in WorldCat related to the sought-after book. (The ISBNs together approximately make up a "FRBR work".) The bookmarklet then checks your library's catalog for those ISBNs.

When you are searching for a book in a library, you probably don't care which specific edition you get. We use the power of WorldCat, and OCLC Research's FRBR algorithm, to locate other possible ISBNs for the book you're looking for.

Terms and conditions

Use of this site is subject to OCLC's terms and conditions. By continuing past this point, you agree to abide by these terms.

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