Coolest. Bookmark. Ever.

When we moved down to Mountain View recently, we managed to score a sweet address: right across from the city library! Yeah, yeah, I’m a geek. Sunday in my house was the day you went to church and then you went to the library – it’s a happy memory. And though I’ve spent more time reading blogs than books in the past six months methinks that will change in the near future. Why?

Because of this absolutely sensational LibraryLookup bookmarklet tool.

Basically, this little web application allows you to create a “bookmarklet” – a simple javascript-based bookmark utility you can add to your web browser’s toolbar. The particular bookmarklet that the LibraryLookup site allows you to create is pure shortcut genius: it allows you, while visiting Amazon.com, to automically lookup the item on the current page at your local library via your library’s online catalog. One click and you’re at the library checking out if you can save cash by checking the book out of your local library rather than buying it! The web application used to create the bookmarklet appears to know how to interface with most of the popular web-based libary catalog software, so you should have little problems getting it to work for your local library.

Time to crawl through my Amazon Wishlist and request some books – cha-ching! That spells savings!

And for those of you in Mountain View, use the Base URL http://library.ci.mtnview.ca.us and set the Vendor to “Innovative”. Presto! Shortcut magic!