Translate ReadMe int CheckMeOutFromLibrary

December 20, 2007 8:26 PM

I seem to remember that in the wake of this question someone mentioned (on MeTa, I think) putting all the books that appealed to them into an Amazon wishlist. They were then able to use some sort of tool that exported it into a format useful for taking it to their public library. Does anyone remember this posting? I tried to search for it but my googleFu blah blah blah...
posted by Deathalicious to MetaFilter-related at 8:26 PM (14 comments total)

I don't see it on a quick scan of the LibraryThing MeFi group which is where I would think it would have come up.
posted by jessamyn at 8:32 PM on December 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

I think this is the comment you're looking for.
posted by YamwotIam at 8:48 PM on December 20, 2007

(points [2] & [3])
posted by YamwotIam at 8:49 PM on December 20, 2007

Someone asked me about my massive Amazon wishlist and I replied saying that it's meant to be more of a "books I want to get at at some point" list which I normally use for the library. A tool to make that easier would be extremely useful.
posted by divabat at 9:15 PM on December 20, 2007

Goodreads, which is much like librarything, lets you import your Amazon lists, which can then be exported as csv files, I believe. You might want to check on that, though.
posted by jtron at 9:53 PM on December 20, 2007

Dang, I had such high hopes for you all. Jess? Take it over please. I feel a headache coming on.
posted by LiveLurker at 10:50 PM on December 20, 2007

This bookmarklet generator allows you to search your local library for any book you find on Amazon. It's just one at a time, not a whole list, but pretty close to the functionality you describe.
posted by jjg at 10:50 PM on December 20, 2007

YamwotIam has it, I think.... It may have been that I scanned that comment the first time and thought the "plug in" meant something of a more automatic and less cut-and-paste-y nature.

jtron's Goodreads suggestion sounds useful in any case...I may give that one a shot.

If I ever do get around to setting up my own website (something I should have had for years, it's only a matter of time before the one other person in the US with my name decides to get a vanity website) maybe one of the first things I can make is an Amazon wish list extractor. And of course, if I do this, I'll post it on projects.

Thanks so much to everyone for helping me with my late-late-night (and somewhat lack-of-sleep addled; it was supposed to read into not int) query.

...and close.
posted by Deathalicious at 12:03 AM on December 21, 2007

I have a personal wiki set up that handles this. When I see a book I like, I check my school and local libraries online to see if they have it, then I save the title/author into my wiki and indicate which library has it.
posted by philomathoholic at 12:55 AM on December 21, 2007

There was also this, on 43Folders: Your Amazon wishlist when you really need it, which is just instructions for pretty-printing your Wishlist.
posted by tew at 4:25 AM on December 21, 2007

You can also check out The Pocket Wisherman.
posted by mikepop at 6:25 AM on December 21, 2007

You can also use Greasemonkey with Firefox to put "look up this book at the Deathalicious Public Library" links on Amazon pages. Example that I hacked together for the Chicago Public Library.
posted by WCityMike at 7:46 AM on December 21, 2007

Okay, I've gone ahead and made a GreaseMonkey Script that performs this function:

Adds 2 buttons to the Amazon Wishlist page: 1 for a printable version of the page, and another for CSV export.

I wanted to go to the library and look for the books in my wishlist, but trying to get them laid out in a easy-to-read fashion was too difficult. So, I wrote this Greasemonkey script that strips out everything but the titles and authors. As far as I know it only works on amazon.com (i.e. not .co.uk or .ca). You also MUST have the wishlist in compact view.

I also posted it to Projects but I'm not clear whether Greasemonkey scripts "count", so just in case I posted here as well.

Userscripts is a little funky, so if the site ever goes down you can always email me for the script.
posted by Deathalicious at 7:51 PM on December 23, 2007

* Attempts to mark Deathalicious' response as Best Answer. *
posted by philomathoholic at 1:04 AM on December 25, 2007