web browser digital reference

mozilla firefox has an incredibly simple toolbar interface for custom search engine plug-ins. there are literally hundreds of plug-ins contributed by the mozilla community for all variety of special purpose search engines.

i use a handful of web reference tools. these are the plug-ins i’ve collected so far:

screenshot of mozilla's search bar
(if i was a reference librarian, i’d be drooling right now)

update: i just created two three search plug-ins for UNC’s library catalog, campus directory, and google in the unc.edu domain. want ’em? unzip uncsearchplugins.zip and save the files in Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins and restart Firefox.

update: i should mention that the campus directory plugin only queries last names. i’m told AIS is planning to implement full name searching in the near future.

update: now you can install the unc search plugins instantly!

UNC Library Catalog

UNC Google

UNC Campus Directory

4 Comments

ha! i just downloaded firefox because one of my co-workers – seeing mozilla on my desktop asked if it was firefox. which, of course, meant that i had to get that instead. thanks for pointing out at least one reason why it’s great. i’m still trying to figure it out.

I use the search plugin for Scirus, which is especially good for searches for scientific and medical literature.

Kansas

The UNC Campus Directory only is good for last name first; should have told us that. i couldn’t figure out why i didn’t exist for the longest.

yeah. sorry. i’ve got a ticket into AIS to have them do fullname searching. but the plugin only searches on the last name field.

Care to Comment?

Or if you'd prefer to get in touch privately, please send me an email.

Name

Email (optional)

Blog (optional)