I love the library

Okay, making things better isn't always about making the world better. Sometimes it's about making life easier or more fun. I've recently been reading a decent amount about productivity, which I think appeals to the poor, suppressed organized person that lives inside of me. A couple of favorites include LifeHacker(geek to live=great slogan), which led me to David Allen's Getting Things Done.

Anyway (puts self back on original tangent), I found out today about the LibraryLookup project. For other people who love the library (or who read more books than their current income should really support), you know that when you're browsing Amazon, and you find a great book, you want to see if your local library (or, if you're lucky enough, the higher education institution with which you are affiliated's library...more about how sad I will be to lose such an affiliation later) has the book that is setting off your imagination. Back in the day, you would write down the name of the book on some running list, and look the next time you were at the library. Online card catalogues made it that much easier...now you open another tab, copy and paste the name of the book or the ISBN into your local library catalog's search feature and out pops the availability.

Presenting...an even easier way! Go to LibraryLookup. Figure out what cataloging system your library uses. Make a "bookmarklet" and drag it up to your bookmarks toolbar. Now, anytime you're on a website that uses the ISBN of a book in its URL (the handiest example being Amazon), you can click the bookmarklet and badda-bing, badda-boom, up will pop a window with all of the information on your library's holdings. No copy/paste required.

Apparently, there's more (the geeky among you should read an update from the creator of LibraryLookup), but I'm not going to look now.