Using RSS and Z39.50 to Find Books Your Library Doesn’t Have… Yet.
Posted on September 15th, 2005 by LizGenius. Pure genius.
“There are lots of great ways to find out if your library has a book you want, but what do you do when your library doesn’t a have a book? In the case of popular books that have been recently released, you know your library will get them soon, but you also know there will be a long waiting list. You probably want to put a hold on the item as soon as possible. Your library might even provide a webpage listing the newest items. But by the time you get around to checking, the list of holds will likely be very long. Some libraries will email you when a book comes in, and a few even have RSS feeds of new items. But even that isn’t perfect because for large libraries, the list of new items can be big.
What you want is an RSS feed that lists items that your library does not have yet. You want that RSS feed to be empty until the item is available. As soon as the item is in the catalogue it will show up in your feed and you can put a hold on it. ”
Read how he did it!
The Paranoid Agnostic » Using RSS and Z39.50 to Find Books Your Library Doesn’t Have… Yet.
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