A few months ago, I created a Greasemonkey userscript that would allow someone to see whether or not the Thousand Oaks Library has a particular book while they’re browsing through Amazon.com. I think a lot of people like using Amazon to browse for books, so the idea is to make it very easy to see if your local library already has the books you’re interested in so you don’t have to pay for them. Other libraries have done it so it’s not an original idea. In fact, to develop the linky, I basically copied the AADL Amazon Linky created by the Superpatron. If you want to try it out, here’s how you can install it so it works on your Firefox browser. Let me know if you have problems getting it to work. Btw, it’s free!
1. First, download Greasemonkey from http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org. If you download it using Firefox, it should automatically install it.
2. Second, go to the following url to get the user script: http://www.umich.edu/~rkong/amazontollinky.user.js. The TOL Amazon Linky should be installed automatically if you already have greasemonkey installed.
3. Open up Amazon and search for a book title. Wait until the whole page loads and you should see a note that tells you whether or not the book is available at the TOL. If you click on that link, it will take you directly to the item record in the TOL online catalog.
Note: If you’re looking at the Amazon page for a book in paperback and the library only has it in hardcover, it will say that the book is not available at the library even though we really do have it. If you see this, I recommend that you also try clicking on the “hardcover” link in the “other formats” section. Most of our books are in hardcover. Also, this linky probably won’t work for most audiovisual materials.
Click here for an example of a public library that does a really great job of advertising their linky. Also, the instructions are great so if you can’t make sense of my brief instructions, it might help you to look at their page!