One More Library Trick: a quick URL for linking to ISBNs

While the Provincial Library web OPAC does allow for a search by ISBN — on its advanced search page — there’s no easy way to link directly to a particular book from another website simply by its ISBN.

So I created one.

If you go to a URL in the following form:

http://ruk.ca/isbn/XXXXXXXXXX

Where you replace XXXXXXXXXX with the actual ISBN you’re linking to, you’ll automatically get redirected to the record for that ISBN (if there is one) in the PEI Provincial Library web OPAC.

Here’s an example:

http://ruk.ca/isbn/0596003838

That’s a link directly to the record for Content Syndication with RSS by Ben Hammersley.

Note that this will obviously only be of value if there actually is an item for the ISBN in question in the library’s collection. Note as well that it looks like the library only started entering ISBNs into their OPAC recently, so this is missing for earlier items.