Welcome Book Bazaar iPhone app
WorldCat staffers love their mobile phones, no doubt. And now there's one more reason to love them even more--another new iPhone app is now available that includes library data via WorldCat and the WorldCat Search and Registry APIs. Called Book Bazaar, the free app was developed by Bayview Labs in Mountain View, CA,
With Book Bazaar, you type in a title, author, keyword or ISBN to compare prices for books at online or local bookstores, and now libraries. Developer Rizwan Virk was quoted in the official announcement as saying, "Book Bazaar is made for book lovers who want to find a specific book right away. The best and easiest way to find a book is at a local library, and so we want to support local libraries as much as possible."
We like this idea! Book Bazaar is available for U.S. iPhone users at the moment, but I understand more platforms are in development. I don't know offhand--but maybe someone can test and tell me--if you have an iPod Touch or an iPad, can you also download and use Book Bazaar? Let everyone know in the comments section.
See additional photos of the different screen shots on the WorldCat Facebook page. You can download Book Bazaar in the iTunes App store.
On May 13, 2010 at 9:42 AM Kyle Cook said:
Tested Book Bazaar App on iPod Touch (1st Gen). The App worked fine. Able to complete searches using all four fields. Great to have a Worldcat-powered app working with this device.
Many of the entries did not have ISBNs attached to the records, so it did not pull up library holdings for these. Most of the records for newer books brought up several kindle versions - none of which correlated to library items. I haven't done enough searches to know whether this was a serious flaw in the database there.
On May 13, 2010 at 3:43 PM Kyle Cook said:
Yes, the Book Bazaar application is functional on all iPod touch. I tested on a first generation iPod, so I would assume it would work on newer models.
One flaw is that the search tends to yield a lot of records with ISBNs, making location in a library difficult. For the few books I searched for, I had to try several editions before one with an ISBN came up and connected me to the library through WorldCat.