LibX updated - bug fixes and new search options May 16, 2008
Posted by Paolo in : Catalog Tip, Cool tools , add a commentIf you’re a user of the Duke LibX browser plugin for Firefox, you should soon be getting prompted by Firefox to update the plugin. If you want it right away, go to the Tools / Add-ons menu and click “Find Updates” in the Extensions tab.
The new version is 1.2.8, and includes a couple of changes.
One is that the embedded “cues” stopped working in Amazon pages a while back, and this new version applies a fix that makes them work again. When you’re viewing a book page in Amazon, you should see the Duke Library icon next to the book’s title (looks like this: 
- it’s a silhouette of the Reading Blue Devil weathervane on top of the von der Heyden Pavilion). If you click on the icon, it will start a search in the Duke Library Catalog to see if Duke has the book for you to check out.
The other change is the addition of the option to search the new Search TRLN system via the LibX browser bar and right-click menu. The menu item (labeled “Search Triangle Research Libraries”) will search the catalogs of Duke, NCCU, NCSU, and UNC-CH and show you results from all for universities. There’s more information on Search TRLN in this earlier post.
And you can read more about all of the other things LibX can do in this earlier post about Duke LibX or on the Duke LibX download page.
If you’re a Duke LibX user, please tell us in the comments section what you like or don’t like about it, and if there are things you’d like to see changed added to it. If you’re not already using it, try it out!
Search TRLN: Facets for Refining Searches May 12, 2008
Posted by Phoebe in : Catalog Tip , add a commentWe have already highlighted a couple of features of the Search TRLN Catalog, which allows users to search the combined library catalogs of Duke, UNC, NCCU and NCSU. If you missed them, see our posts on spelling correction and quotes.
Probably Search TRLN’s most innovative and powerful feature is that is it a “faceted browser” interface. After you perform an initial keyword search, you can narrow your result set by choosing one or more ‘facets’ from the menu on the left side of the screen.
Here’s an example. I am interested in Pylos, a Bronze Age archaeological site in Greece, which was also the site of a famous Classical Greek naval battle, and is today a small city that occasionally hosts academic symposia.
A keyword search for “pylos” pulls up books relevant to all of the above, but I am particularly interested in the Linear B tablets from Pylos, so I click the relevant facet under Subject:
Many of the hits are in languages I don’t read, so I open the Language facet to narrow my search to only items in English:
Search TRLN keeps track of the facets I have chosen, and I can broaden my search again by clicking the x to stop using one of the facets:
Other facets available include format (book, dissertation, map…), location (at Duke?), author, year of publication, and call number range. Happy faceting!
Search TRLN Tip 2: Quotes! May 6, 2008
Posted by Phoebe in : Catalog Tip , add a commentAnother great new feature of the Search TRLN interface for searching across the Duke, NCCU, NCSU and UNC libraries is that you can use quotation marks in the search box.
Quotes are a great tool when you know the item you want and are trying to find it. Sometimes a Keyword or Title Keyword search returns irrelevant hits - though honestly, the Search TRLN algorithm is really good: in my experimenting, I found that usually the title I want is on the first page of hits. If you have trouble finding your title, putting quotation marks around it will usually help the item you want rise to the top of the results list.
You can also use quotes to link together keywords into a phrase. Instead of searching for ’social activism’, which gets you 1746 results, try ‘”social activism”‘, which results in only 164 hits - much easier to browse through.
What if the article I need isn’t full-text online? April 22, 2008
Posted by Kathi in : Catalog Tip, Question of the Week, Tips for students , add a commentUnfortunately, not all databases or online searches will lead to full-text articles, but there is always a chance that we have a print copy of the journal. In order to check whether the library has copies of the journal, check the online catalog:
- You can either search by “Journal title keywords” or “Title begins with…” from the library homepage search box
- Be sure to type the name of the journal in the search box (not the article title)
We also maintain a handy guide of helpful tips and instructions for finding journals. If you’ve ever been confused about journal abbreviations or how to find journals on your topic - it’s a great place to look!
iGoogle and Duke Libraries April 10, 2008
Posted by Phoebe in : Catalog Tip, Cool tools, Database Tip , add a commentWe’ve heard of several faculty and library staff members who are converts to iGoogle, which is sort of a customizable universal home page. If you use iGoogle and the Duke Libraries, you should certainly add our Google Gadget, which lets you put the tabbed search box from the library home page right into iGoogle. Here’s how it looks:
You’ll notice that Catherine also has her Gmail account, Facebook account, Google Reader (for subscribing to blogs, like Duke’s Library Hacks!), Google Docs, and a news feed (plus other stuff you can’t see like weather and Youtube) all feeding in to her iGoogle page.
You can also create your own free-form “gadget” with links to, for example, e-journals or databases that you search all the time, creating a series of research shortcuts for yourself. Give the Duke Library Google Gadget a try and see if other iGoogle tools work for you. If you have a library or research-related iGoogle Hack, leave us a note in comments!
