LibX was a free,

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

scholars' extension for the

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated as IE or MSIE) is a deprecation, retired series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft that were u ...

browser (and formerly for

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curr ...

) that lets people use services offered by their library. Users can search their library catalog(s) and databases through a search bar or through a context menu. The context menu is adaptive (changing depending on what the user selected) and configurable (allowing the user to include any configured resource). LibX supports the catalogs of all major vendors. In addition, any resource that can be searched using an http GET request can be included, similar to Firefox's smart keywords. Resources can also be accessed using auto-generated links for DOIs,

ISBNs The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier that is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase or receive ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency. A different ISBN is assigned to ea ...

, ISSNs, and PMIDs. Links are also placed in specific pages, such as book vendor sites or book review sites. To support off-campus access to resources, users may reload a current page, or follow a link through a proxy server. LibX activates

COinS A coin is a small object, usually round and flat, used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by ...

with the library's

OpenURL An OpenURL is similar to a web address, but instead of referring to a physical website, it refers to an article, book, patent, or other resource within a website. OpenURLs are similar to permalinks because they are permanently connected to a r ...

resolver. LibX supports a "magic search" functionality, which creatively integrates use of the

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of Academic publishing, scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in Beta release, beta in November 2004, th ...

service. LibX searches Scholar, performs a heuristic similarity analysis to determine if a match was found, then redirects the user to the user's OpenURL resolver to obtain an accessible copy. Librarians, as well as ordinary library users, can create a LibX edition through an AJAX-based web interface, called the LibX Edition Builder. This interface allows anybody to create, edit, maintain, and distribute an edition. As a starting point, users can clone an existing LibX edition and modify it, or start from scratch. The LibX edition builder makes heavy use of auto-detection of resources through global registries such as OCLC WorldCat or OpenSearch. It includes a revision control system for editions and facilities for multiple maintainers to share ownership of an edition. The LibX edition builder was built using the ZK AJAX toolkit, by Tilottama Gaat and Godmar Back. LibX is produced by

Virginia Tech The Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, commonly referred to as Virginia Tech (VT), is a Public university, public Land-grant college, land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States ...

, which hosts customized versions of the extension for over 256 different libraries. Annette Bailey and Godmar Back, the creators of LibX, won the 2007 LITA/Brett Butler Entrepreneurship Award for their work on LibX.

References

External links

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LibX Edition Builder
{{Virginia Tech Virginia Tech Library 2.0 Free Firefox legacy extensions

See also

References

External links