Bier de Stone (blanketsin.com) wrote,
Bier de Stone
blanketsin.com

How to be first on the waiting list of library copies of best sellers

Hah! Ever since I finished the second part of Stieg Larsson's novels, I've been tracking the status of the library's collection for The girl who kicked the hornet's nest. It seems that every time I place a hold on a best seller, I'm always number 300+ on the waiting list. So this time I had a strategy because I was determined to be number one. Today, I open my web browser and the library's catalog page pops up with the results for the bibliographic record for hard copies of The girl who kicked the hornet's nest soon to be processed. In other words, although there aren't any copies yet available (just the bib. record to show that there will soon be purchased copies added), the latest upgrade for the GUI catalog system seems to welcome holds placed by readers for non-existing copies of books. Turns out I'm number 31 on that waiting list. If it hadn't been for changing the web browser's home page to redirect my browser to point to LAPL's search result ╽ every time I start Firefox [KEYWORD: girl who kicked the hornet's nest] I wouldn't have known. It's obvious to me that the majority of the 30 people waiting in front of me are probably library staff. In fact, I too am part of that group. Yay! me. I like my job.

Check my footnote for a direct link to the bib record page. Incidentally, I didn't use the keyword function to pull up the library's bib record for this book. I had obtained the ISBN number from amazon dot com, or bn.com and created a ISBN search using the library's catalog system. If you're familiar with reading URL encoding, you can see the search criteria I used. Note: KEYWORD searches, as well as a TITLE searches, are effective for titles as rare as girl who kicked the hornet's nest but you'll soon find that many authors write books with titles that have been used before; so unless you know the name of the author of the book you seek, a person may have to weed thru a list of same title books when searching this way. Conclusion: always use the ISBN number whenever possible for looking up library books.

╽ http://catalog.lapl.org/carlweb/jsp/DoSearch?databaseID=965&index=I&terms=9780307269997
Tags: books
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