Our Small Library Story

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(No Transcript)
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Our Small Library Story

• The Madigan Library has 1 Librarian in charge of
  Digital Initiatives and 2 FT Virtual Resources
  Staff
• Minimum customization to our ILS
• Not much time for developing new projects
• Limited programming experience

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How do we make our opac more relevant to todays
users?
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Two kinds of promotions well be discussing today
1. Bring them to your catalog
2. Bring your catalog to them
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Bring them to your catalog
Use Symphonys or Unicorns tools to lead users
to your catalog via promotions, subject guides,
bibliographies, etc.
Some examples of the tools available to you

• Custom search urls
• Item categories
• Item types
• MARC fields

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Bring them to your catalog
Custom Search URLs
(also called External URLs)
A custom search url is a url that you construct
that makes a link into an on-the-fly search for
a specific item type, category, keyword,
etc. These URLs can then be used in web sites to
provide users with an easy to use, seamless link
into your OPAC
You do the work for your user!
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Bring them to your catalog
Examples of how weve used custom search URLs at
PCT

• A link to materials in the OPAC of 1 item type

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Bring them to your catalog
Examples of how weve used custom search URLs at
PCT

• A link to materials in the OPAC of 1 item type

• 1. Books on CD for Summer Travel Promotion
• http//proteus.pct.edu/uhtbin/cgisirsi/x/0/0/5/X
  ?item_typeCD-DISC
• Url used included in promotional email sent to
  all faculty staff at the end of the
  Spring Semester
• Url does not need to be updated to use again at
  Holiday Travel time
• Url can be incorporated into a small image in
  email so user only has to click the image
  to go to the OPAC list

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Bring them to your catalog
Examples of how weve used custom search URLs at
PCT

• A link to materials in the OPAC of 1 item type

• Books on CD for Summer Travel Promotion
• Roll out for Video on Demand titles

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Bring them to your catalog
Examples of how weve used custom search URLs at
PCT

• A link to materials in the OPAC of 1 item type
• Links to specific books

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From the Madigan Library Website
Bring them to your catalog
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Bring your catalog to them
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Bring your catalog to them
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Bring your catalog to them
Each thumbnail cover is a link to the record for
that title.

• http//proteus.pct.edu/uhtbin/cgisirsi/X/0/0/5/0?
  searchdata10393061728
• custom url using ISBN
• linked to thumbnail image of scanned book cover
• CSS use of divs ltdiv classthumbnailgt to create
  look of each title image, text and link
• must manually update page scan images

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Bring your catalog to them
Examples of how weve used custom search URLs at
PCT

• A link to materials in the OPAC of 1 item type
• Links to specific books
• Using item categories for displays

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Bring your catalog to them
From the Madigan Library Website
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Bring them to your catalog
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Bring them to your catalog
Examples of how weve used custom search URLs at
PCT

• A link to materials in the OPAC of 1 item type
• Links to specific books
• Using item categories for displays

• Use link on our library homepage Featured
  Events section
• Use link in our online campus newsletter to
  reach students
• Use link in emails to interested faculty

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Bring them to your catalog
Examples of how weve used custom search URLs at
PCT

• A link to materials in the OPAC of 1 item type
• Links to specific books
• Links to materials in an item category for
  displays
• Links to materials in an item category for an
  always-current bibliography

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Bring them to your catalog
From the faculty page
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Bring your catalog to them
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Bring your catalog to them

• http//proteus.pct.edu/uhtbin/cgisirsi/X/0/0/5/0?
  item_2catGAMES_IND
• custom url using item category 2
• provides a list that is always current
• link can be emailed to a professor at a moments
  notice

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Bring your catalog to them
Examples of how weve used custom search URLs at
PCT

• A link to materials in the OPAC of 1 item type
• Links to specific books
• Links to materials in an item category for
  displays
• Links to materials in an item category for a
  always current bibliography
• Links to materials by MARC fields

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Bring your catalog to them
From the Madigan Library Website
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Bring your catalog to them
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Bring them to your catalog
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Bring your catalog to them

• http//proteus.pct.edu/uhtbin/cgisirsi/x/0/0/5?s
  earchdata1LST594
• We have put the fund code (by subject) into the
  local note field 594
• Periodical lists are always current

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Bring your catalog to them
Another promotional idea Turn on the
search ebooks only feature
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Turn on the search e-books only feature

• Its a simple on/off choice in your sys.env file
  under the Electronic Book Configuration
  area
• It works with up to 5 item types (E-BOOK, E-REF)
• Our e-books stats went up 33 after we did this

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Bring your catalog to them
Put your catalog in places where your users are
going.
Some examples of places you can put your catalog

• iGoogle
• Amazon
• IMDb
• CMS
• Blogs

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Bring your catalog to them
A personalized, self-designed google page upon
which you can choose custom content. Easy to
create modules or nuggets that you can promote to
your users
Put yourself right on your users iGoogle page!
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Bring your catalog to them
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Bring your catalog to them
In an iGoogle page
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Bring your catalog to them
In Angel CMS
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Bring your catalog to them
A userscript for Firefox users that creates a
link inside an Amazon book details page that
checks to see if the specific title is available
at your library.
Put yourself right in Amazon!
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Bring them to your catalog
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Bring them to your catalog
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Bring your catalog to them
Modified from the LION Library Lookup Script
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Bring your catalog to them
IMDb Madigan Library Search 1.0
A userscript for Firefox users that creates a
link inside an IMDb movie details page that
checks to see if the specific title is available
at your library.
Put yourself right in IMDb!
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Bring them to your catalog
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Bring them to your catalog
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Bring them to your catalog

• Similar to the Amazon Library Lookup
• Uses Firefox
• Repository in userscripts.org
• Requires greasemonkey
• Adapted from existing script

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Bring your catalog to them
Yahoo

• Create a customized RSS feed for your catalog
  using an external url
• Use anywhere you want an RSS Feed
• Create a badge to put on website

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Bring your catalog to them

• Use an external url to create an RSS feed in
  Dapper

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Bring your catalog to them

• Choose the content you want in the feed

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Bring your catalog to them

• Use the dapper-created RSS feed as your source
  in Yahoo Pipes

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Bring your catalog to them

• Use pipe as is. People can add to their iGoogle
  or Feedreader

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Bring your catalog to them

• Create as a badge and imbed in blog, website,
  etc.

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Promoting these tools

• Have a place where all your tools, widgets,
  gadgets, scripts, etc. are available

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Promoting these tools

• Have a place where all your tools, widgets,
  gadgets, scripts, etc. are available

2. Use in emails, promotional postings, etc.
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Promoting these tools

• Have a place where all your tools, widgets,
  gadgets, scripts, etc. are available

2. Use in emails, promotional postings, etc.
3. Talk about them formally, in sessions,
classes, etc. and informally in talking with your
colleagues, users, etc.
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Tools Ive Used

• Flickr
• Flickr.com
• requires a yahoo account
• use to imbed images into emails, websites, etc.
• can give you an image in thumbnail, small,
  medium, large size

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Tools Ive Used

• iGoogle Gadget
• Create custom content gadgets for iGoogle
• portable into other places as well
• www.google.com/ig/gmchoices?hlen

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Tools Ive Used

• Greasemonkey
• Allows users to install scripts that make
  on-the-fly changes to specific web pages
• useful for creating a multitude of custom
  scripts
• https//addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/74
  8

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Tools Ive Used

• Userscripts.org
• A repository of user-created scripts to install,
  inspire share
• useful for creating a multitude of custom
  scripts
• userscripts.org/

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Tools Ive Used

• Yahoo Pipes
• An interactive feed aggregator and manipulator.
• A repository of user-created pipes to inspire,
  copy share
• pipes.yahoo.com

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Tools Ive Used

• Dapper, the data mapper
• Create an RSS feed from a URL
• Customize what content you want in feed
• Use in another service like Yahoo Pipes
• www.dapper.net

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Tools To Watch

• Trixie for IE7
• Trixie is to Internet Explorer as
  Greasemonkey is to Firefox.
• It lets you remix the Web via scripts.
• www.bhelpuri.net/Trixie/

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Most Important Things Ive learned

• Try anything
• Ask questions from others already using it
• See if theres anything out there similar to what
  you want, then go from there
• Dont give up. Go back later
• You cant break it

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For more information, contact
Tracey Amey

• Digital Initiatives Librarian
• Madigan Library
• Pennsylvania College of Technology
• Williamsport, PA
• 570.320.2400

home.pct.edu/tamey aim traceyamey email
tamey_at_pct.edu phone x3701
A pdf of this presentation is available at
http//home.pct.edu/tamey/presentations/cool_opac
_tools.pdf