Are these books checked out?

April 7, 2008 7:42 AM

I have just uploaded my very long Amazon wish list into librarything (neat!). I would like to see if these books are available at the Mid-Manhattan library. I know I can search for them one by one in Leo (the NYPL search engine). Is there a more efficient way for me to do this?

In other words, if librarything somehow does this for me, and I just haven't found that feature, that would be amazing. I don't really want to search LEO book by book, because I am very lazy.

Really, any trick that will allow me to search LEO for more than one book at a time would be helpful.

Thanks in advance!

posted by prefpara to computers & internet (5 comments total)

LibraryThing does not do that for you to the best of my knowledge. However, what you really need is to use Firefox, install Greasemonkey and then install this script or possibly this one. When you do, it will show little links to the NYPL catalog on your amazon page (not sure if it will show it on your wish list or if you have to look at the actual item page) and then you can search NYPL with one click and no typing. If you need mroe instruction on how this works, let me know and I'll flesh this out some.
posted by jessamyn at 7:47 AM on April 7, 2008 [3 favorites]

You can try LibX. There's a Firefox extension just for NYPL, and one for WorldCat if you want to find out what other libraries in your area have the book. As with the scripts Jessamyn linked to above, once installed it will show links to the NYPL catalog page on the Amazon item page.
posted by needled at 8:53 AM on April 7, 2008

2nding LibX. It should work for other sites, too, not just amazon. Ours is configured to link any ISBN-type number on any web page to our catalog search, and that includes librarything.
posted by donnagirl at 12:13 PM on April 7, 2008

I like bookburro (bookburro.org). Whenever there is an ISBN on a page, you can click on the bookburro panel to search for the book anywhere you like. You can configure it to show WorldCat results, and by entering your zip code into the bookburro preferences, it will show return results near you -- including the NYPL. It works on amazon.com pages, as well as other online booksellers, and there's also a context menu search.
posted by tractorfeed at 10:29 PM on April 7, 2008

Thanks! These are terrific tools. I look forward to a mountain of late fees.
posted by prefpara at 7:27 AM on April 8, 2008