Installing the KSC LibX Edition

Obtaining LibX Keene State Edition

This browser add-on for Mozilla’s Firefox or Google’s Chome can be obtained here:

http://libx.org/editions/downloadlibx2.php?edition=1436B8CC  

There is also a “Demo LibX 2.0” button that allows you to try some of the features of LibX without installing the add-on to your browser.  You will not be able to test the context menu or auto ISSN/ISBN detection/lookup features via the demo page.

Install LibX Keene State Edition

Installation is easy! Navigate to the link provided above and follow these steps.

• Select the appropriate link that corresponds with your browser (Firefox in this example)

• Click through the add-on installation dialog boxes

• Restart your browser

• Done! A small red icon with a K will appear in your toolbar. Click this to open LibX

Streamlining Research via LibX add-on

LibX offers amazing functionality in the form of a browser add-on to Firefox and Chrome.  You can customize it so that it will put all (or most) institutional resources in one place. Clicking the Keene State College icon (), in this case, opens the LibX add-on screen with a search box that will search the Mason Library Catalog by keyword.

Consolidated Search Interface

One Search Location for many resources

Perhaps better still we can search all of our EBSCO products, JSTOR, OED or Credo. 

Resources consolidate to appear in context menu also

Notice that by highlighting/selecting words on the screen and right-clicking, I’m able to search all the resources from Keene State that LibX has been programed to be aware of: 

Configuration of Context Menu

Opening LibX and clicking “Preferences” will allow you to configure many right-click search options. 

Whatever you select in the menu below is what will appear in your context menu.

Built-in Citation Chasing

LibX has the ability to automatically recognize ISSNs, ISBNs, and DOIs. Whenever any of these references are detected in the browser screen they are converted to links that will automatically search your institution’s OpenURL server for the resource. Citations, when possible, are marked with a small icon to indicate that LibX recognizes a resource that you can query.

Other Uses of ISBN/ISSN/DOI detection

Check catalog and other holdings for items in Amazon and/or other vendors

Another use is when viewing books at a vendor like Amazon;  hovering over the ISBN provides this information lookup (via WorldCat) and clicking the ISBN automatically searches the library catalog. 

Streamline certain workflows

 This feature is useful not only for research but was invaluable for searching through long lists of ISSNs when I worked in subscription management; I would upload an Excel spreadsheet to Google Docs so that I could view a long list of ISSNs in my browser. Now I was able to simply click on each ISSN to determine whether we had the journal and whether the journal was active and working. This saved me the trouble of copy/pasting ISSNs into a search page and clicking through several pages to get to a single resource. Over the course of 900 items this saved me a considerable amount of tedium and time. 

Consolidated Linking

In addition to consolidating common searches into one location without having to navigate through several pages just to get to a resource, commonly used KSC links are grouped in one location as well.  Currently this add-on is geared towards student use providing links to research resources, KSC, Mason Library, Interlibrary Loan request page, Keene State Commons, and MyKSC.