The Vancouver Public Library vs. Amazon

Since I’m moving moved to new digs in a new city, one of the first thing I had to do was to get a new borrowing card for the Vancouver Public Library before a scary portion of my disposable income ended up in Amazon’s pockets.

Out on the internet though, where I basically live most of my professional life, people point at Amazon when they want to reference a book - not the library. What’s a poor, environmentally and cost-conscious book lover to do ?

Personally, I set up a new bookmarklet in Firefox that allows me to follow someone’s referenced Amazon link to the book (or DVD or album) on Amazon, press the bookmarklet in my browser bar, it parses for an ISBN number on the Amazon page and then it brings up the relevant page for that item at the Vancouver Public Library. I just hit Request Item and the item is quickly delivered to my neighbourhood branch for me to pick up. How cool is that ??? Not to mention the megabucks it saves you using the library for most books instead of Amazon.

Anyhow, just thought I would point to Jon’s Udell’s LibraryLookup Bookmarklet Builder. It seems to cover every major library IT system I can think of, so do yourself and your pocketbook a favour and check it out.