Indiana University East

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.

Campus Library–The fall semester begins, Monday August 25, 2008 at Indiana University East. New and exciting tools are available at the Campus Library to help students and faculty research and review literature. The new search tool developed from Serial Solutions federated 360 SEARCH product and locally the instance is named, Red Hot Search. A related product 360 LINK is named Red Hot Quest. These two tools work together to find information resources to provide for research, review and scholarly work for students and faculty.

At a small academic library, locating full-text is limited by ownership, funds and resource access. These two important tools provide access to citations and through the quest to subscribed and un-owned resources in the form of full-text, document-delivery services/ILL through ILLiad, bibliographic management through a product called RefWorks, and information about other library services.

The dragon image will help students and faculty locate and follow services for the Campus Library. This stylized dragon image may be used in a variety of library resources to help individuals find information resources. Contact the library staff at 765-973-8411 for more information regarding workshops and reference appointments to help with your information needs. For academic success, Follow the Dragon….

Posted originally in Red, Hot and New on blogspot.

Wow, it is RED-HOT in the Campus Library! Our searches are on fire!

Searches on library databases have been relegated to one-at-a-time searching for most of the databases subscribed to by the Campus Library. Google is seen as faster and more encompassing. Welcome RED-HOT-SEARCH! A multi-database, full-featured search tool.

Since January 2008 the library staff have been adopting several services from Serials Solutions, a library vendor of online products. These products, or online tools, allow library databases to be organized and searched in groups. The library dragon image leads users to the new library tools offered by the library vendor Serials Solutions 360.

Currently, about 80 campus databases may be searched at one time, selected as subject search databases or clicked individually to search 1-80 databases at one time. This research tool is very flexible, offering clustered results options, help screens, and Full-text choices.

RED-HOT-QUEST is a partner tool that also uses the dragon image to identify options to locate and obtain access to the full-text item chosen by the user.

Campus Library Patrons can use these two tools to search for resources and then go on a QUEST to find the full-text of articles chosen from the search. The tool either leads the researcher directly to full-text the library subscribes to, links to options for document delivery services offered by the library or offers the user options to save the citation information to the bibliography tool, RefWorks.

Posted originally in Red, Hot and New on blogspot.com.