BookBack is a minimalist Chrome extension that helps discrover copies of books at local public libraries. When you visit a book page on Amazon, Indigo, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, Bookshop, and several others, BookBack scans the page, detects the title and author, and adds a small floating widget that lets you check availability at your own libraries.
BookBack is part of the UnCart Movement, a project encouraging people to spend less, reclaim the digital commons, and strengthen public good infrastructure.
- Automatically detects book pages across major bookselling sites
- Extracts title, author, and ISBN using DOM heuristics and JSON-LD metadata
- Lets users configure unlimited library search templates
- Opens each library search in its own tab to bypass popup blockers
- Includes a clean “find a library near me” fallback
- Works on Amazon, Indigo, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, Bookshop.org, Thriftbooks, Powell’s, Better World Books, Alibris, AbeBooks, and more
- Privacy-first, no tracking, no analytics, no remote servers
Code references:
- Service worker:
background.js:contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3} - Content orchestrator:
content.js:contentReference[oaicite:4]{index=4} - Extraction engine:
strategies.js:contentReference[oaicite:5]{index=5} - DOM/UI rendering:
ui.js:contentReference[oaicite:6]{index=6} - Styles:
styles.css:contentReference[oaicite:7]{index=7} - Options page:
options.html,options.js:contentReference[oaicite:8]{index=8} :contentReference[oaicite:9]{index=9} - Manifest:
manifest.json:contentReference[oaicite:10]{index=10}
git clone https://github.com/YOURNAME/bookback.git
cd bookback