Free library search backdoor

Cory Doctorow 1:22 pm Fri Feb 1, 2002

Library census. Amazon salesrankings are interesting, but what about the noncommercial world of library shelves? Wouldn't it be cool to discover which libraries are holding onto how many copies of your favorite books? The Online Computer Library Center provides just such a search — for a fee. However, Abebooks (an online antiquarian and rare book-search service) has a free back-door into the service. Here's how it works: Go to this site and enter a search for a title that isn't in any of Abebooks' members' catalogs. You'll be presented with a link that activates a back-door search of the OCLC's library database, which returns a list of all the American libraries that have a copy on their shelves. Complicated, but cool.

Link

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(Thanks, Gavin!)

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