Amazon.com Wake County Library Lookup

by Josh Staiger

September 10, 2005

Now that the security hole in Greasemonkey is fixed, I finally feel comfortable dusting-off and releasing my most ambitious Greasemonkey effort to date:

This script will tell you if any editions of the item you are currently browsing on Amazon.com are stocked at Wake County Public Library.

As always, see the project page for details, screenshots, and downloads.

If this idea sounds familiar, it's because Jon Udell did it six months ago. I was inspired by his script, and decided to write my own version from the ground up.

Searching Multiple Book Editions

Why the rewrite? Why not simply modify Udell's script? My script is slightly more sophisticated than Udell's. The problem with Jon's script is that it only searches for the one edition of the book that you're currently browsing.

For instance, if you're looking at the paperback edition of a book on Amazon, but the library only stocks the hardcover edition then you get a "no". As a result, any time you're browsing a book on Amazon and the script reports "no", you have to wonder whether it's lying to you.

On the other hand, my script searches all editions of the book you're browsing. It lets you know if any editions are available, and if so, which ones.

I've found this to be very helpful, and it has increased my usage of the library tremendously (even if I don't live in Wake County anymore - shh!).

The Future

I have time then I'll write dialects for the Duke, UNC, and Orange County libraries. I'd do one for the Durham County Library, except their online catalog seems to be trapped in the mid 1990s when Java Applets were the way of the future.

Generally, I've written the script so that only one function need be modified to adapt it to different libraries. Please feel free to write a version for your own local library, and post it to the Greasemonkey script repository.

Perhaps, I'll even write a tutorial on how to modify this for other libraries as well...