One thing I have learned as a librarian, is that most other librarians share great ideas and resources. I have not been disappointed this year. At a recent gathering of Indiana University librarians, Kirsten Leonard, from the Indiana University Kokomo campus, shared information about a tool she found during a presentation at a library-related conference. The organization responsible for the development of the library toolbar is LibX.org and provides open-access software and development support for librarians and libraries everywhere!
The toolbar is developed by individual libraries and offers a variety of options for searching. The Campus Library Toolbar includes access links to several important resources and web pages, it allows searching of several library resources from the browser’s toolbar and provides options for the search field to be processed. The Campus Library Toolbar searches Red Hot Search/Quest, IUCAT, WorldCat.org, Google Scholar and Credo Reference.
The developers of this wonderful product provide an instant-access path for library users to some of the most used resources in libraries. The toolbar finds library resources from typed search terms without individuals needing to remember resource or page addresses/URLS. The toolbar also looks at several web-based book sellers and places the Red Hot Quest image on the resource. In this way IUCAT will be searched for that specific book using the ISBN (International Standard Book Number); the tool uses only the Campus Library, Indiana University East’s records to accomplish this search. Once installed the image will show on various websites including Google Scholar, a text only product.
This product provides proxied access to the Campus Library resources from off-campus for all Indiana University East members with an IU username and passphrase. The toolbar is in general use in the Campus Library in the Blakey Research Room, on the Mozilla/Firefox browser. Please, visit us to try out this useful and fun toolbar! Once installed the Mozilla/Firefox product will download updates for you, so you may use the most recent version with ease!
The permanent URL for the Mozilla/Firefox extension is http://libx.org/editions/71/B8/71B82B5A/libx-71B82B5A.xpi
and for the Beta IE plugin is
http://libx.org/editions/71/B8/71B82B5A/libx-71B82B5A.exe.
If you have questions regarding the Campus Library Toolbar, contact Sue at smcfadde@indiana.edu.
Posted originally in Red, Hot and New on blogspot.com.