At the bookstore? See that book? See that barcde? Scan it to find the book at your local library!

I'm a little overdue on writing about this one, but thanks to the design of Occipital's RedLaser app ($1.99 in the US) it was so easy to do that it didn't seem like any big deal. I guess people are finding this useful though so here's some info. (I don't want to sound too self-important or anything here, but I am starting up a business and I suppose I should toot my own horn a little bit so.... I was the one who originally created the three bookmarklet/applets things for RedLaser shown in the right in that image. Occipital made it so easy though that all I really had to do was come up with the idea.)

Anyway, using the iPhone bar code scanning application RedLaser in combination with this Mobile Safari bookmarklet, you can tap an icon on your phone, scan in a book ISBN/EAN barcode, and immediately see which libraries in your area have the book. Bookstores have got to hate that.

This is turning out to be useful enough that it's gained a little bit of media attention:

• Point, Shoot, Reserve: OCLC brings library information to RedLaser
• iPhone App Provides Access To Local Libraries (from a local TV station, with video)
• Mucho Cool for iPhone Users from OCLC! RedLaser iPhone app and WorldCat, Find Books in Local Libraries

If you have RedLaser installed on your phone:

1. Launch Mobile Safari
2. Navigate to this page (type in appmagination.com)
3. Tap on the following link: WorldCat Scan Bookmarklet
   

Follow the directions that appear and create an icon on your home screen using Safari's "Add to Home Screen" feature.

If you don't have RedLaser, well it's only $2 and well worth that price. This has to be the best application I've seen for $2 and I'm not exaggerating.

Here's a blog post from the Ann Arbor District Library (AADL) showing what the launch icons looks like, as well as two other bookmarklet-type links for searching online catalogs: one for AADL, and one for MeLCat (Michigan's automated inter-library loan system). If you're in Michigan, the MeL applet will be particularly useful since it will allow you to have a book sent from almost any library in the state to your local library in a barcode scan and a few taps. Pretty convenient.

Here's a blog post at WorldCat talking about further RedLaser integration with WorldCat.

Here are some instructions from Occipital on  how you can create your own applet for RedLaser quickly and easily with no programming knowledge required. All you really need is some understanding of how query URLs work with search engines.

Note that Occipital also has a RedLaser SDK that they license to developers that allows their bar code scanning functionality to be embedded into almost any iPhone application. So if you need some functionality related to barcode scanning that you can't accomplish using the simple applet search integration scheme described above, it's possible that a custom iPhone application that utilizes the RedLaser SDK could meet your needs.

If you need any custom application development done and don't have a developer, Appmagination might just be able to help you out. Feel free to contact me for more info.