Amazon@Libraries - Firefox Extension

Amazon.co.uk Library Holdings Lookup - Firefox Extension

This Firefox Extension/Greasemonkey plug-in script inserts a panel on to the book details page of Amazon.co.uk if the book, identified by ISBN, is held by libraries which have contributed their holdings data to the Talis Platform.

Updated Version!
You can now select your own subset of libraries, in addition to seeing all libraries that hold a copy.
Amazon@Libraries has now become a personalised library lookup tool for Amazon.co.uk.

Here is an example of how it looks:

Click for a larger view

Clicking on a library listed in the panel will open a new window which takes the user to the relevant library's interface to display the relevant record.

To use this extension, click on the link below from within your Firefox browser, and follow the instructions.

amazonlibraries.xpi

Note: If you have not downloaded a Firefox Extension from Talis before, you may have to follow the Firefox instructions to allow a download from our site and then click on the link again.

To test it is working, visit this link and see the @Libraries window in the bottom right of the screen.

Note: If you have already loaded an earlier version of this tool as a Greasemonkey plug-in, you will need to disable it from the Manage User Scripts option from the Firefox Tools menu, to prevent conflict with the extension version.

So what is this useful tool demonstrating?

• Firstly, how easy Greasemonkey makes the injection of functionality in to a web page
• Secondly, how by using Talis Platform API calls data contributed to the Open Talis Platform can be used to drive new functionality in to the Amazon page. The two API calls used are:
  • The Holdings Lookup service - an ISBN lookup in to Holdings data contributed to the Platform, which returns a list of libraries which hold one or more copies of an item.
  • The Bibliographic Deep Linking service - a browser redirect service which utilises the entries in the Open Platform Directory to take the user deep-linked in to the target library's search interface

If you are interested in how it works and would prefer to load it as a Greasemonkey Plug-in click on the following link [from within Firefox when you have loaded Greasemonkey].

amazonlibraries2.5.user.js

The source of the file will appear on screen. Click the Install button in the yellow Greasemonkey bar that appears above the text.

Developers note:
The tool was developed as a Greasemonkey plug-in script and the compiled in to a Firefox extension with the help of a Greasemonkey compiler [http://www.arantius.com/misc/greasemonkey/script-compiler.php].