Widgets and more widgets

I mentioned another widget of fun for the library web page yesterday, but did not elaborate. Several months ago, and again yesterday during a small committee meeting about Serials Solutions, discussion ensued concerning the feasibility of having a quick catalog search button on the main library page. We batted the idea around for a few minutes before returning to the topic at hand, choosing the interface/views we wanted for the using Serials Solutions.

After our meeting, the systems librarian browsed through available catalog code from III that would facilitate searching from the main library web page; a search widget. With less than stellar options available, we decided to borrow another member library's catalog search widget code and would adapt the box (a table) color, font, and catalog URL. Viola! I gleefully added it to the main web page. It was a bit of a design nightmare, too many "new" things on the main page, but with a bit of tweaking it now resides in such a way that patrons are able to see the search option without scrolling down off of the main page.

My new affinity to widgets then lead me to put the catalog quick search on the three resource center blogs and call it "catalog from the blog."

Tags: Blog widgets, Widgets, Academic library, Library web pages, Library catalogs,Library blogs