SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

https://www.libraryextension.com/

A browser extension for Chrome/Firefox/Edge that lets you easily see if a book is in one or more of your libraries. Right now they support libraries in Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, UK and US. I haven't used it before, because Finnish libraries aren't supported, but it just occurred to me that:

a) Others might want to know about it

b) If the mods knew the most popular libraries people use, we could possibly (maybe, not promising anything!) check some of them when curating for mod polls

Try it out for yourself if you haven't already, and if you want to tell us what libraries you use, you can do so either in this thread, or by sending me a private message, if you don't want everyone to know what city you live in. I'll add the most popular member libraries on my browser, because I can't use it for my Finnish library anyway, so I might as well use it for this :)

--

AvailableReads (see Becky's post below)
http://rhollister.github.io/goodreads/

I use the AvailableReads extension for this, but it's limited to Overdrive compatibility. I do like that it is visible both on the book page and shelves, and lists both ebook and audiobook version availability.

But, I'll check that one out too. My local library is not on Overdrive and I would like to have more visibility into their availability without having to navigate their website, which feels like it's from 1996. (And may actually be.)

Thanks Becky, I'll try that one out, too!

Whoop, AvailableReads works with my library! ^_^ This is great, thanks again Becky! :) You can add any library as long as they have Overdrive. I now have this on my primary browser where I use GR for personal purposes, and Library Extension on the other browser that I use for mod stuff :)

AvailableReads seems to only be for Goodreads, Library Extension works on a ton of sites.

(Also AvailableReads works with my legacy Waterfox, LibExt does not.)

Sorry I keep babbling :D

I have a GR shelf called 'library' that is for books I have out or on hold from the physical library. It's funny that these are all books my (physical) library has, and now there's a new column telling me my library (Overdrive) doesn't have it XD

But it's super convenient for other shelves!

Wooo! Happy it works for you too. :D
Yes, I have my two remote digital libraries on there, and I hope that LibExt will work with my stone tablet library. :P

Yay! It works! But ugh - look at how unprofessional my library's catalog is. No capitalization, no punctuation... just a mess.

Yes, AvailReads is much prettier than LibExt all around.

Is there a way to make these work on my phone or do I have to wait until my desktop is functional again?

It's working on my laptop, but I just checked on my phone and it doesn't show up. Maybe it isn't compatible with phones?

They're browser extensions, so no, but maybe there is an app that has similar functionality?

Hi All,

I'm the developer behind the Library Extension - I saw the mention here, and I wanted to just say thanks for the mention. I do apologize for the not-so-great UI; I'm working on some improvements but I haven't done much to improve it over the years.

I also mention that the "casing" in the title there is my fault - there's some internal work that the Extension does to try and make title matching work effectively (eliminating some case issues and words is among the tricks that it has to pull for some titles). It tends to impact the main catalog entries more than the digital catalogs - but I'm hoping to clean that up soon.

There isn't a mobile phone version yet - but I have some ideas for a possible approach (it wouldn't be part of any application, but could work with the 'share' feature that is available on most pages - if there's interest, let me know and I can include you when the beta becomes available.

hey, thanks for the comments! looking forward to the work you're doing

Hi Andrew and thanks for a great extension! :) I don't really care how it looks if it works, and it does work beautifully. I especially like that you can choose whether you want to do the search automatically or not. I don't always need to see the info, so it's nice that I can choose to see it when I need it. Especially if I plan to add tons of libraries :D

Andrew wrote: "I also mention that the "casing" in the title there is my fault - there's some internal work that the Extension does to try and make title matching work effectively (eliminating some case issues and words is among the tricks that it has to pull for some titles). It tends to impact the main catalog entries more than the digital catalogs - but I'm hoping to clean that up soon."

I did NOT at all think that this was your app's fault, and in this case it is not. My local library often lists book titles in all lowercase on their own site, and it has bugged me for years! Here's the one I mentioned:




FWIW, I am definitely keeping your extension, and thank you for making it and to Anna for letting me know it exists. It's SO much more convenient to be able to use GR to see a book's availability at my library than trying to use their awful site with their terrible search. Honestly, just the fact that I can now avoid that process and likely actually USE my local library more makes you a hero in my book! :)

Andrew, thanks for stopping by! I am really getting a lot of use out of your extension, and like Anna, don't mind how it looks as long as it works.

My library's search is excellent, but I have thousands of books on my TBR, and who wants to search all of them? :S

And since everyone is thanking everyone, the reason I thought to start this thread is because LibExt now supports StoryGraph, and I saw all the tweets from people who were super happy about it. And like I said in my starting post, even if it doesn't support *my* library, there are probably lots of people whose libraries are supported and who don't know about it yet :) So thanks TSG for retweeting all the enthusiastic reactions to LibExt supporting TSG! :D

Thank you Andrew, its an awesome addition - great job!! I'd love to try out the beta iPhone version when ready!

Rebecca wrote: "I'd love to try out the beta iPhone version when ready!"

Same!

Me too! Thanks Andrew! And thanks for this work!

Me, as well!

Add my thanks as well. I have been using the extension for over a year now. even submitted a few bugs which Andrew fixed very quickly. Now up to 6 libraries, the extension is VERY useful when looking at new books and where they are available in which media. Shows Cloudlibrary, Overdrive, Hoopla, and Internet Archive so usually can find a the book somewhere.

As an ex-software engineer, always preferred Function over Form, so casing and other appearance issues almost go unnoticed by me. Awesome work Andrew, thanks again.

I'm up for beta testing on android, Andrew!

Every once in a while I click on the banner on the book page to see what the Beta is doing and thankfully it seems DOA. (Stake it through the heart and officially call it vanquished and I'll be happier though.)

Anyway, I tried it today, and noticed that AvailableReads extension doesn't seem to work on the new page version. At least, I couldn't find it if it did. But LibExt DOES work just fine.

So another kudos for that, Andrew. If we are ever subjected to the awful new version, at least THAT will still be useful. :)

(If someone doesn't know about the beta page, we have a thread for it here. And HeyT even mentions that LibExt works on the beta!)

I don't know how you remember all of the things, Anna! I made coffee 10 minutes ago, forgot about it, and was like "I need coffee" and got up to make it only to find my cup sitting there, lukewarm and wasted. Is this pandemic brain, or is mine just defective in general?

In other news, I can't believe that I was so caught up in my Beta Page Rage (tm) that I didn't even bother to look at LibExt back then. I could have been using it for almost a year already! GAH!

I don't know how/why I remember things like this either, but it comes in handy when you enjoy linking to all the things :D I don't remember important things though, and don't ask me to find that thing I just put somewhere but can't find.

Oh yeah, I've been looking for that thing for weeks! :P

Let me know if you find it! I need it! :D

I love that AvailReads works with my library! ^_^ I've already read a couple of books from my TBR just because I could see on my shelf that my library had them and they were available. Just now I was looking at next month's BOTM, thinking I'd have to buy it because Storytel doesn't have it, but the book page told me that my library has the audiobook available, yay! I regularly look at new additions to my library's Overdrive, but I didn't remember seeing Sorrowland, so I possibly wouldn't have searched for it before buying.

It's not like I don't use my library already, but this makes it so much easier to browse GR and see what's available right now. If AvailReads developers are reading this, please add a shelf/tag that shows all unread books on my GR shelves that are currently available in one of my libraries! :D

I just spent about 3 hours going through my To Read shelf and checking my local physical library availability via LibExt and categorizing my shelves to know where a book is available.

I'm so nerdy happy! I almost never use my local library because searching their site is so annoying, but this process has shown me that they actually have a lot more books I'm interested in than I would have thought. This is muy exciting. :D Now I just have to decide which ones to request first.

Though, I may have to just wait a bit because Sorrowland, but just knowing this opens up a whole new arena of reading stuff is awesome.

Wow. This is a convenient extension. Thanks for sharing, Anna!

Updates for the new GR book page, please!

I love that AvailableReads works on the shelf, I can still use that ^_^

As Anna wrote, we REALLY need a way for the Library browser extension to work with the new GR book pages! I'm starting to panic...

Library extension is active for me on the new page and has since the beta. I would make sure yours is up to date if it's not on the page. I will say very rarely I have to sometimes refresh the page to make sure it's active though.

Yeah it works for me too, but AvailableReads doesn't, and that's what I mainly use. I now have to add books to a shelf first to see if my library has them, because no way am I going back to actually searching my library catalogue :P

I have LibExt on my secondary browser which only updated to the new book page today, for some weird reason, so I wasn't sure until now that it works.

I've double checked, and the Extension is still working on the updated GoodReads site.

I might suggest restarting your browser completely - here's the background:

When Google releases an update for their Chrome browser at roughly the same time as any browser extension (including the Library Extension) also releases an update, there appears to be something the interrupts the Extension and its ability to run properly. Users can continue to use their browser, but need a complete restart of the browser (sometimes even rebooting their machine) in order to get the Library Extension to resume working properly again (I don't know what the reason for this is, though I have encountered it myself).

Sometimes there's also an issue that I'm working on figuring out, where the GoodReads page makes some late changes to its layout and removes the Extension. A refresh of the page will often get it back - I realize this is annoying, and I am continuing to figure this out.

Let me know if either of the two suggestions helps!

Thank you Andrew! You are my hero!

Andrew, you are awesome. I will not be restarting my browser at the moment because my book page is still (miraculously) showing the usable version and not the "improved" version, but when they finally get to me, at least I will know there is a fix.

Thank you for making this "improvement" Goodreads is imposing on us marginally more bearable. You rule.

Noooo, AvailableReads is broken! :'(

Anna wrote: "Noooo, AvailableReads is broken! :'("

It seems to be working for me... What are you seeing?

It's not loading on the book page and in shelf view (also not loading and) it looks like this:

I don't see an option inf the Settings to toggle on Available Reads? How did you add it to your Shelves?

It’s a browser add-on, link in the first post!

I installed it on Chrome and it works there, so I guess it's Firefox that's broken :(

Oh it works differently on Chrome! The libraries are in alphabetical order on the shelf instead of the order I added them in (and am used to).

Why is life so hard?! XD

I think both are broken now for me. Neither one is finding any books. Nothing at all. :(

I’m not on my laptop today so I can’t check but LibExt worked this morning! Could this have something to do with things changing on Overdrive’s end? The app was recently taken out of operation, maybe they’ve changed something now that it’s Libby only?

It’s funny how reliant I have become on both of them and I don’t want to go back to not having either.

Oh, unless you mean AvailReads stopped working on Chrome? That also worked for me this morning, but I haven’t looked since.

Library extension worked for me 4 hours ago. I haven't checked since.

And same, Anna. They make life as a reader and a mod so much easier. I'd bawl my eyes out if they were taken away from me.