Got Firefox? Library Link to Google Book Search Now Available

by Library Journal
Mar 16, 2006 | Filed in Archive

By LJ Staff

You can't easily find a library link using Google Book Search, as LJ pointed out earlier this year. Google offers automatic links only to public domain books - apparently to maintain good relations with publishers who could sell in-copyright books. Now Internet consultant Edward Vielmetti, a member of the Technology Advisory Board of the Ann Arbor District Library, MI, and founder of the Superpatron blog ('Tools and scripts to improve on your local library'), has devised a solution.

As Vielmetti writes, it's odd that Google doesn't offer "find in a library" link on most books. After all, he notes, 'a lot of the works have ISBNs that could be turned into library queries.' So he's adapted the code from Jon Udell's Library Lookup so it can insert a link to his library's holdings on the Google Books screen. It requires use of the Firefox browser and the Greasemonkey extension. On the Google blog, Ben Bunnell of Google Book Search team praised Vielmetti's effort, even though he didn't explain why it's taken so long for Google to simply add the links.
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