The Library Extension has saved me dozens of dollars on Amazon.com, so I’m taking a moment to share the good news.
The Library Extension (https://www.libraryextension.com/) is a browser plugin for Chrome (Firefox coming soon) that shows me whether the book I’m browsing on Amazon.com is available at my local library systems. The extension sits quietly in the upper-right-corner of my browser, a grayed-out stack of books, until I’m looking at a book on Amazon, then it displays a box with availability information. Here’s a screenshot:
If there aren’t any copies available, it will tell me that too:
The Library Extension was easy to install and configure. The support team promptly fixed it when I discovered my libraries’ names were misspelled in their database.
The Library Extension is working perfectly on Chrome on my Mac, but is a little confused on Chrome on my PC — there’s a message that books aren’t available, but then it shows the number of copies available (and they really are available). I’m going to remove and reinstall it on my PC and I’m pretty sure that will solve the problem. It takes a moment or two for the extension to look up a book when I first land on the book’s Amazon page, which is still a lot faster than me having to open a second browser window and check the library websites myself.
When a book isn’t available at one of my local library systems, I sometimes still buy it from Amazon, but the Library Extension has already saved me the expense of several purchases. It’s also a nice reminder of the value of our local library systems.
michelle rau 