Sunday, January 25, 2009

LibX - Seattle Public Library Edition

So you're surfing the web, and you see mention of some cool book. You want to see if it's available at the Seattle Public Library. So, you:

  1. Select the title
  2. Copy it
  3. Open a new tab
  4. Go to http://www.spl.org
  5. Paste the title into the search box
  6. Click Go
Oh my goodness, that's WAY too much work! If only there was an easier way!

Fret no more, dear reader. LibX to the rescue! Install Libx Seattle Public Library Edition in your browser, and now your book-hunting life will be as easy as:

  1. Select the title
  2. Right-click and choose "Search Seattle Public Library"
See?



If you use the Seattle Public Library, please try this out and let me know how it works for you!

I've only got title, keyword, and subject search going so far. That's plenty enough to right-click the name of a book in a book review and choose "search Seattle Public Library for [book title]."

In theory LibX editions are auto-updating so if you install now, when I do add ISBN support, you'll get it automagically.

Suggestion: I don't really care for the toolbar that gets added into the browser, and you don't need the toolbar to get the right-click goodness. To hide the browser toolbar:
In Firefox do View - Toolbars and uncheck SPL LibX. Or just hit F9.
In Internet Explorer right-click on the toolbars and uncheck LibXbar

Tip: start trying this before clicking "buy" at Amazon! The money you save could be your own....

4 comments:

  1. Excellent. Thanks Dan!

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  2. Nice Dan, this is great.

    If you have build notes for how you did this, I'd be happy to build one for Ann Arbor.

    thanks

    Ed

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  3. @Edward - all I had to do was follow the superb "Edition Builder FAQ" at Libx.org. It took a little trial and error, but not much.

    Before you go create one for your library, be sure to search to see whether your library (or another "superpatron") has already got a LibX edition - over 500 libraries already do!

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  4. The folks at the Seattle Public Library pointed out that there is also a Firefox search provider for Seattle Public Library available. (Do a find on that page for 'Seattle'). That'll make SPL an option in Firefox's search box.

    But you'll still want LibX Seattle Public Library Edition to get that groovy right-click-ability. :-)

    ReplyDelete