Access 2008 - Day 3, LibX - an Open Source, Community Platform for Delivering Library Services

LibX is great, great, great, browser extension.  Brock has implemented a good first edition of the toolbar.

The main benefit with LibX is the edition builder.  That way any school running any sort of ILS and additonal resource could build a localized version of the toolbar without any heavy coding.  The guts of the tool bar are powered by ZK. The product originally was released in 2005, but it wasn't until 2007 that the edition builder went live and popularity took off.  The edition builder portal is totally AJAX based so that no save button needs to be clicked after a change has been made.

Another great stride for ease of use is the extensive amount of autodetection the ediition builder goes through.  It will contact OCLC based on your IP address and it will try to pull up your catalogue vendor, & OpenURL resolver plus many other parameters.  In all no Library should shy away from creating a LibX toolbar.

Future steps?

• Extended OpenURL options
• Integrated catalogue search in Google search results
• Catalogue 'LIB HAS' information in Amazon
• Integration with OCLC identity management connector

...Neat.