Searching High and Low

While taking the latest beta redesign of the Ebscohost search interface for a spin I noticed they’ve integrated the popular Add This bookmark button right next to the permanent URL in every article citation.

This particular bookmarking tool is used by many sites on the web and I anticipate our students will recognize it.  Whether they choose to add links to this kind of content on places like Facebook or Myspace is another story.  At least the option is available.  Here’s the sharing list that pops up when the button is clicked:

Wade Roush at xconomy reports on an announcement by OLPC’s founder Nicholas Negroponte (of MIT’s Media Lab) describing their next generation ebook laptop:

The book-like design of the device “comes from something we’ve learned over the past couple of years—that the book experience is key,” Negroponte said during his presentation this morning. “Some people have asked me why not just give kids cell phones? And in fact there will be 1.2 billion cell phones manufactured this year, and cell phones are of huge consequence in the developing world—but the cell phone is not a learning device. The next generation laptop should be a book.”

I saw today that Ebsco support has added a Search Box Builder [Update July 2009: here's an updated link directly to the tool] for those interested in creating a search box widget for Ebscohost databases that can be dropped into any webpage. The builder form asks you to enter a variety of parameters and then generates code that you can copy and paste into your site.

To construct your form you will need to:

• select which Ebscohost databases are to be searched
• enter proxy server information (if any)
• choose search limit options (full text, scholarly journals, etc.)
• select a style from the style gallery (three choices)

That’s it. For libraries that maintain a substantial collection of Ebsco databases, I can see this tool being used to create subject-specific search forms that can be placed on “research by subject” pages on a library site.  Here’s a full text search box for two databases at my library, Academic Search Premier and MasterFILE Premier.  [May not work if you're at home or if your institution does not subscribe to these two databases]

From The New York Times

Some of the largest book publishers in the world are stripping away the anticopying software on digital downloads of audio books.

The trend will allow consumers who download audio books to freely transfer these digital files between devices like their computers, iPods and cellphones — and conceivably share them with others. Dropping copying restrictions could also allow a variety of online retailers to start to sell audio book downloads.

…

“Our feeling is that D.R.M. is not actually doing anything to prevent piracy,” said Ms. McIntosh of Random House Audio.

iLibrarian has compiled an interesting list of 40 add ons for the Firefox web browser that may be of interest to librarians. I use a few of them already (FoxyTunes, Meebo, WebDeveloper, Zotero) but will test drive a few more. The first one that caught my eye was the Fireshot add on to make, annotate, and export screenshots. I’ve found it very handy so far in creating some documentation the past couple of days. Here’s an example: