Thanks to a connection i made at the She's Geeky Conference last month Judith Bush sent me a message on twitter this afternoon about the new xISBN bookmarklet that OCLC has updated and that now supports thousands of libraries. According to the announcement it will be updated on a monthly basis so if a library maintains up-to-date information in the Registry, its data will be automatically reflected in xISBN bookmarklet that has been installed by the user.

Is was only 12 months ago that i found this handy tool, and i can say that i have already probably saved hundreds of dollars by getting books from my local library that typically i would buy from the likes of Amazon. If i could find a combination of this and buying chapters and 'sections' of books that i would like to keep digitally for my digital devices like my laptop, itouch and 'dreaming of getting a kindle' - i would be in heaven!

So what does this Bookmarklet tool do? Here is an excerpt from my post on February17th 2008 on the subject:

So let's imagine that i am on Amazon.com and i am looking at David Weinberger's book 'Everything is Miscellaneous'. I don't have a Kindle so no easy download for me- and perhaps i am not sure i want to commit to having a copy in my book collection before i read it (well this book i actually do-and well marked it is!).

So before purchasing of Amazon.com, I decide to see if my local library system- in my case the Peninsula Library System (PLS)- has the book available. Clicking on the Peninsula Library Bookmarklet i installed- extracts the ISBN from the URL on the bookseller's page (Amazon in this example) and then goes to a library catalog and searches by ISBN.:
A search against the PLS Catalog shows me libraries in my Library System that i can borrow from that have the book in their collections. I can then cruise down to that location to pick it up, place a hold on the book if it is checked out, or put a request for interlibrary loan right from my browser. There are also many ebooks available from my PLS library system so i can get immediate access to those.