General FAQ

First, LibX is designed to be easily customizable.

Additionally, we believe that there is a difference in design philosophy. Most toolbars we have looked at simply provide a way for simple searches in one or more OPACs and databases. However, such functionality already exists in Firefox. Users can create Smart Keywords to automate simple searches in databases they frequently use.

Similarly, many toolbars add a number of links to databases a library offers. We do provide the functionality to add links in LibX, but ultimately we believe that users will add frequently used databases to the Firefox Bookmarks Toolbar folder.

Instead, in LibX, we focus on increasing the user’s productivity by making common, library-related tasks fast. From our experience, this includes:

• The “Magic Button” – simply select an article title and have Scholar & the OpenURL resolver deliver an appropriate (accessible, “paid-for”) copy. This is a feature we use daily for our own research, it’s proved to be a tremendous time saver.
• Lookups of a complete book title, author, or ISBN – usually by selecting & right-clicking on a webpage.
• Proxying a page or link when coming from off-campus.
• Using cues and autolinking to get from pages that a user frequently uses to the library catalog.
• Improvements to vendor-provided pages.

We do not aim to replace the library’s OPAC; and although unlike most other toolbars, we do support moderately complex multiple-term (often called “advanced”) searches in LibX, we will (probably) never support all options provided by an ILS’s advanced search dialog.

LibX is also different from other toolbars in that it integrates support for librarians to create their own applications to be incorporated into their LibX edition and to share that application with the rest of the library community.