Galvin Library is pleased to offer an exciting new tool that makes online research easier than ever. The IIT Library Toolbar allows you to access the library from anywhere on the web, allowing you to search the library catalog and Google Scholar from your browser’s toolbar, and linking references to books and articles on web pages you visit to the library’s catalog and online journals.

What is it?
A browser extension for Firefox and Internet Explorer built on the LibX platform that provides direct access to library resources. You’ll find it on all of the library’s computers, and now you can install it for your own browser as well.

What it looks like:

Install the IIT Library Toolbar (Firefox)
Install the IIT Library Toolbar (Internet Explorer)

Features:

Catalog search box: Search the IIT Library Catalog or the I-Share Catalog directly from the toolbar. Search by keyword, title, author, subject, ISBN/ISSN, or call number. Use the button to add more search fields for advanced Boolean queries.

Right-click context-menu: When you select a piece of text on a web page and right-click, LibX offers a number of different search options for that term, such as a catalog search by keyword, title, or author; a Google Scholar search; and a search of ITT’s online journal holdings. LibX even recognizes what type of text you’ve selected — be it plain text, an ISBN or ISSN, DOI, or PubMed ID — and offers different options to match!

Google Scholar button: Use LibX to search Google Scholar for articles and quickly find full-text copies subscribed to by your library. Select a citation (or any piece of text), then drag-and-drop it onto the Scholar button on the toolbar to do a search for that item. You can use this feature even from inside a PDF file, which makes retrieving papers referenced in a PDF file a snap.

Embedded IIT links: LibX places IIT icons — or — in web pages if the library has resources related to that page. Whenever you see the icon, click on the link to see what the Library has to offer. Icons are displayed at Amazon, Google, Yahoo! Search, the NY Times Book Review, Barnes & Noble, or other pages where COinS metadata has been embedded. Watch this screencast for examples of this cool feature (requires Macromedia Flash Plugin).

For more information on this great new tool, click here.

Searching the library catalog for books, e-books, videos, government documents, and print journals at IIT just got a whole lot easier! We’ve created a search plugin for Mozilla/Firefox and Internet Explorer 7 browsers that allows you to search the catalog directly from the search box at the top right of the toolbar. The incredibly simple installation process only takes a few seconds—click here to learn more. After installing the plugin, you’ll be able to do a keyword search of our catalog from anywhere in the World Wide Web, no matter what page you’re currently viewing.

Get the IIT Library Catalog search plugin

Search plugins are a great way to make one of the most common web activities—searching—faster and more efficient. Plugins are available for many popular sites such as Google, Wikipedia, Amazon, Dictionary.com, and now Galvin Library. Want to learn more about search plugins? Check out this page from Mozdev.org.