« New report examines attitudes of young people to public libraries in the UK

Now you can get the Amazon Plug-in

22nd June 2006, 01:08 am by Richard Wallis In: Libraries, Library 2.0, TDN, Talis, Talis Platform, Web 2.0, Web Services

In the many Web 2.0/Library 2.0 presentations I have given over the last few months I have used a Greasemonkey plug-in for the Firefox web browser to demonstrate how, by using AJAX techniques and Open Web Service API calls to the Talis Platform, library functionality can be served up to a user to add value on non-library sites.

The plug-in in question detects the ISBN on the book details page of amazon.co.uk and provides a list of libraries which hold one or more copies of the book. The panel in which the list of libraries is displayed is formatted to fit in with style of the Amazon page and hence appear part of it. But that is not all, clicking on a library in the list fires off a new browser window taking the user, deep-linked, directly to the relevant library’s OPAC page for that book.

All this is powered by holdings data and directory entries contributed to the Open Talis Platform.

I have often been asked if I could provide a copy of this plug-in for people to use on their own systems. Up until recently, this had not been possible because it utilized prototype versions of the Platform API calls. Now that the first batch of API calls have been released, the plug-in has been updated to use these production versions. Which means that I am able to release it for you to download and use.

Visit the relevant TDN page where you will find instructions on how you can get hold of the plug-in, try it out, let me know what you think of it.

Seeing Library API services being mashed-up to add value to a non-library site such as Amazon will stimulate some ideas for you to enter the Mashing up the Library Competition.