Do you spend much time searching online databases, search engines, and/or library catalogs? Do you use Firefox? If you answered “Yes” to these questions, Firefox has a built-in solution that can streamline the search process by allowing you to search your favorite engines, article databases, and/or library catalogs directly from the location bar.

Part of my daily work as a librarian is searching. I search library catalogs, article databases, search engines, and other research tools available through my library. I use many of the same resources over and over throughout the day and grow tired of pointing and clicking my way through the library’s website in order to launch the search screen of the desired tool. A common resource might be several mouse clicks deep into the library’s site. The navigation and search process for a simple catalog or database search goes something like this:

1. Browser window
2. Library web site
3. Database gateway (research by subject or alphabetical list)
4. List of databases
5. Database search screen
6. View results

That might not seem like a great deal of time to the average person, but I usually have a patron standing in front of me (or on the phone) who wants to know if we have the latest bestselling book or a request for a copy of the article on washing machines from last month’s Consumer Reports. It’s within this context that I find it helpful to execute a search query from the location bar of the browser window and have the results displayed on my screen in a matter of seconds. Here’s an example query from a blank browser window that searches Google:

In the above image, the text you see in the location bar “goog information literacy standards” will send a query to Google for the three words that I entered (information, literacy, and standards.) The ‘goog‘ is the keyword that I’ve designated for the Google search engine and everything that appears after it is what I’m telling Google to find. Hit enter on the keyboard and the results will appear on the screen.

So, by taking advantage of the custom keyword bookmark feature in Firefox, I am able to streamline the navigation and search process to make it look like this:

1. Browser window
2. Go to the library web site
3. Open the database gateway (research by subject or alphabetical list)
4. View list of databases and link to selected resource
5. Database search screen
6. View results

Unlike Internet Explorer, Firefox allows you to assign a keyword for a search URL so that you can query a search engine, library catalog, or database by typing in the assigned keyword followed by a search query in your browser’s location bar. In previous versions of Firefox this was known as a Quick Search (although this phrase no longer appears to be used to describe this search method, I continue to refer to it as such.)

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_keyword_searches

Making Your First Quick Search Bookmark

If you don’t already have Firefox installed, you can download it from Mozilla.com

Follow these steps to create your own Quick Search bookmarks for those sites you use on a frequent basis:

1. At the search form, right click in the search box and choose the “Add a keyword for this Search…” option.
   
2. At the “Add Bookmark” window give your bookmark a name (this is the name that will display whenever you browse your bookmark file) and assign a keyword. The keyword you assign here is what you will use when executing a search from the location bar. Pick something that’s logical and that you’ll remember. For this site I’ve chosen ‘ask’ as my keyword. Click “OK” when your done. That’s it.

You should now be able to execute a search for Ask.com from the location bar by typing: [your keyword] + [your search words]. So a search for ‘information literary standards’ would look like this:

ask information literary standards

Hit enter and the search results from Ask.com will appear on your screen:

Searching Catalogs and Databases

While the previous examples focused on free search engines, the same process can be applied to other research tools like library catalogs and subscription databases. Here’s a list of some of the resources I search using the Quick Search method:

• Ebsco databases such as Academic Search, MasterFILE, Business Source, etc.
• ProQuest databases such as The New York Times.
• Library catalogs from vendors such as Innovative Interfaces, SirsiDynix, Endeavor, etc.
• Online bookstores such as Amazon.com, or BN.com
• eBay

When using the Quick Search method for catalogs and databases you might consider establishing several Quick Searches for each resource. For example, I use the following keywords for my local library catalog:

• k – to run a keyword search
• kav – to run a keyword search that is limited to audiovisual materials
• t – to run a title search
• a – to run an author search

Configuring Limit Options

The research databases available for searching at many public and academic libraries give users with a great deal of control over the results via limiting. For example, users can limit settings in databases to only show items that:

• are owned by the library
• are available in full text through the database
• were published within a specified date range
• were published in peer-reviewed journals
• are a specified length (e.g, between 5-10 pages long, or greater than 3 pages, etc.)

The Firefox Quick Search can be used to include these limits as well. To do this:

1. Visit the search form for your resource (search engine, catalog, database, etc.)
2. Configure the search limits and then
3. Follow the directions described above.

Manually Editing Bookmarks

In some cases it may be necessary to manually edit your bookmark to properly configure where your search terms appear in the URL. The directions Mozilla provides for doing this are:

You can also create it manually:

1. Do a search on the site you want to add a quicksearch to.
2. Bookmark the page you are brought to (the results page).
3. Open the Properties dialog for your new bookmark.
4. In your bookmark’s URL (the Location field), find and replace what you searched for with %s (If it does not appear, you cannot use a quicksearch here)
5. Add a keyword

http://www.plymouth.edu/library/opac/ – a Wordpress frontend (WP) with a library catalog backend (opac). Although still in development the results look very promising.

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Update June 2007
The name of the WPopac project has changed to Scriblio. Also, check out the site for the development partner (Cook Memorial Library) that’s based on Scriblio. Note that this library had no online catalog prior to Scriblio.

Part of my daily routine has me using Microsoft Word to create handouts, research guides, and fliers for the campus community. Sometimes I give these away in paper format, but more often I’m finding that many people are starting to prefer an electronic copy (that can be printed if they really need it). One of the problems I’ve found with distributing electronic copies of Word files is that the formatting and fonts used on my machine may not be the same as everyone else’s machine which can change how the file is rendered on the recipient’s machine. I can eliminate these issues by converting these files to PDF.

For those who don’t have a full version of Adobe Acrobat (US $299 – or less if you’re a student or faculty member), free options are available. Sure, you’ll have to sacrifice many of the advanced features that come with the Adobe product, but if you just want to distribute straight-forward Word documents, give this a try.

Zamzar.com

This online conversion site allows you to upload and convert the following types of files:

• documents
• images
• video
  
• and music

I experimented with a couple of rather complex MS Word files (featuring floating images, text boxes, images enclosed in text boxes, header & footer, URLs, arrows, and drop shadows) by uploading them to Zamzar along with my email address. About five minutes later, I was notified via email that my PDFs were ready to go. I clicked the link in my email notification and downloaded the zip file to my computer. The results were excellent. I was expecting some formatting problems with all of the floating text boxes and images in my Word file, but there were none.

I like the many conversion formats that Zamzar supports–it’s like a one-stop-shop for converting some of the more frequently used file formats. The site is still in beta so you may encounter some bugs along the way.

Below is information that can be used to create Ebscohost search forms for web pages or Blackboard sites.

Product Codes for Ebscohost Databases
Use this link to find your Ebscohost product codes. Find the product codes for the database(s) that you want to search. Write them down.
http://support.ebsco.com/knowledge_base/detail.php?id=1255

HTML Code for an Ebscohost Search Box
This section has all of the HTML code that you’ll need for your search box.

——–Start Copy——–

——–End Copy——–

3. Take the product code(s) you obtained in step one and insert it (or them) as the ‘value’ attribute in these lines above

To search multiple Ebsco databases, you’ll need to duplicate the entire line above (each product code needs its own line of code).

4. Finally, create a new content item in Blackboard, choose “HTML” as the text type, and paste the code into the text window. The submitted item will result in a simple keyword search form.

Visit the Ebsco support site for more details on setting up a search form:
http://support.ebsco.com/knowledge_base/detail.php?id=3308

This page links to example library catalog search forms and the source code used to create them. The institutions covered here are all members of the Pittsburgh Blackboard Users Group. These are working forms that teaching faculty and librarians can use to experiment with the integration of library-related content into a course management system. The code for your institution’s library catalog can be copied and pasted into Blackboard or embedded into any webpage.

Community College of Allegheny County
Community College of Beaver County
Duquesne University
Point Park University
Thiel College