an introduction to the use of widgets in libraries

By Aaron Tay20/3/2009

An introduction to the use of widgets by libraries (Theory)

What is a widget?

“Widgets bring the Libraries Web services to you. They include Web applications, simple add-ons for your Web browser, and other shortcuts that make researching a little easier.” – University of Texas Libraries

Examples of library WidgetsSearch pluginsCustom toolbars (Powerpoint presentation)BookmarkletsGreasemonkey scriptsWeb widgetsDesktop/browser/mobile widgets

Browser widgets

Today’s focus

Searchplugin

http://www.lib.nus.edu.sg/webtool/srchplugin/searchplugin.htm

Custom toolbars I Custom toolbars are packages of toolbars designed to be customized for specific websites or organizations.

Most of these custom toolbars require no programming or scripting skill to configure.

Example 1 : Conduit toolbar

Custom toolbars II Libraries have started using custom toolbars as a way to promote their resources.

1. Set up custom searches to subscribed databases2. Links to useful library pages and recommended resources3. RSS feeds to library rss feeds4. Embed Meebo widgets for askalib services etc.5. Federated searches, openurl resolvers6. Provide enhanced services beyond searchplugins

Example 2 : Libx toolbar - Live download of toolbar

Bookmarklet “A bookmarklet is an applet, a small computer application,

stored as the URL of a bookmark in a web browser or as a hyperlink on a web page. The term is a portmanteau of the terms bookmark and applet. Whether bookmarklet utilities are stored as bookmarks or hyperlinks, they are designed to add one-click functionality to a browser or web page. When clicked, a bookmarklet performs some function, one of a wide variety such as a search query or data extraction.” -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookmarklet

NUS Proxy bookmarklet Jon Udell’s Librarylookup bookmarklet OCLC’s xisbn bookmarklet (NUS Library version available) Search bookmarklets (

Sample Linc keyword search bookmarklet)

Greasemonkey scripts• Special extension addon for Firefox/IE that

allows users to install scripts that automatically modifies certain pages on the fly when loading.

• Users need to install – – Gm4ie (IE)– Greasemonkey (Firefox)

• Some examples • Modifies Amazon pages to display if item is a

vailable in our catalogue.

• Modifies pages to add ezproxy proxy stem to outgoing links

Web widgets• Reusable web sniplets that are placed on

html pages or require web browsers to render them

• Allows embedding of dynamic information from third party sources

• Also known as gadgets, badges, modules, snipplets etc.

• Uses either javascript/DHTML or Flash.

Precreated widgets• Offered by web services/websites e.g web

counters, web 2.0 services and more.

• Limited customization, auto-generates html code that you place on your webpage.

• Simple matter of just placing html code/snipplet on the part of your webpage where you want it to appear.

Some precreated widgetsChat – Meebo etcFilesharing – Slideshare etcCalenders – 30boxes.com etcWeb counters Maps – Google maps etcSocal bookmarking linkrolls – Delicious. EtcSocial network badgesPolls – Polladaddy.com

Examples

Sample precreated widget

http://www.youtube.com/sharing

How to add precreated widgets• Go to service/page and look for html

snipplet (customize if needed)

• Copy snipplet

• Paste snipplet in part of webpage you want to appear.

• That’s all

Creating widgets based on Scopus article search results

http://info.scopus.com/htmlfeeds/

Creating widgets based on Scopus article search results

Final result appearing on webpage

Creating widgets based on other academic researches• http://www.scopus.com/scopus/search/form

/authorFreeLookup.url

• http://info.scopus.com/topcited/

• http://sciencewatch.com/

• http://www.scimagojr.com/

Some precreated widgets to add to our subject guides

A) Dynamic bookmarking widgets

• Allows users who like the page to quickly email, bookmark locally, send to social networks (facebook, Friendster etc), social bookmarking /news sites (Digg, Delicious, Furl) , blogs (blogger , livejournal, etc), IM (icq, msn etc)

• Allows tracking to see how often page is being emailed, bookmarked, blogged etc.

• Provides a better measure of “impact” as opposed to simply page views/hits.

•Options include•Addthis!•Sharethis•Tellafriend•Addany•Share+

Alternatives

http://www.lib.nus.edu.sg/webtool/widgets/sharewidgets.htm

B) Dynamic display of documents

• Instead of just displaying a link to our powerpoint, word documents, we can add widgets that will display the document

• Most well known is Slideshare but there are a dozen or more alternatives including

• Scribd• Issuu•Slideboom•Docstoc•Slidesix•Myplick• Zohoshow•edocr

Alternatives

C) Embeding blogrolls from social bookmarking services

• Use social bookmarking sites like delicious, spurl, ma.gnolia (down) , Diigo, Qiteria, connotea, Iterisa, Furl (dead), Simpy, Fleck to bookmark pages.

• Embed widgets provided by these services on subject guide.

• Result : As you add/remove links to the bookmarking service, subject guide will be automatically updated

• For more reading

“Delicious Subject Guides: Maintaining Subject Guides Using a Social Bookmarking Site”

OTHER WIDGETS CAN BE ADDED

LIMITED ONLY BY YOUR IMAGINATION!!!

D) Other ideas

• Meebo, Wimzi, Plugoo , Digsby and other chat widgets (twitter!)

• Facebook, myspace, and other social networking badges

• See Libguides for more ideas (requires $$$)

Creating your own widgets

Creating your own widget

NOT SIMPLE, REQUIRES KNOWLEDGE OF JAVASCRIPT, XML, FLASH PROGRAMMING ETC.

Using "universal" widget maker

RSS Feed widget

Search widget

Widgetbox

http://www.widgetbox.com

Netvibes

http://eco.netvibes.com/login

Dapper

http://www.dapper.net/

Iwidgets

Sprout

http://sproutbuilder.com/ (not free)

Widgetmaker commonality• Requires no programming.

• Uses web forms

• Content is fed via RSS feeds

• Allows minor changes in color, font etc.

• “Universal widget maker” – can be used to put on not just webpages but also blogs, social networking sites, wikis, desktops , online customizable homepages, and more.

Widgetbox

Netvibes

iwidgets

Dapper

Sprouts (not free)

SELF MADE WIDGET

BLOGS

e.g. Blogger, Wordpress

WEBSITE iGoogle

Netvibes

MyYahooFacebook

MySpace

OperaWindows Live

Apple Dashboard

Vista

Sharepoint

Pageflakes

Nexus

Google desktopBebo

Wiki.nus (Confluence)

Adapted from Guus van den Brekel

Where widgets can be addedWebsites Blogs Social

networking sites

Start pages

Desktops

Mobile Other formats

Html (Flash/javascript)

WordPress1

Facebook135

Netvibes145 Vista desktop2

Iphone23 Json4

Sharepoint Blogger15 Myspace3

5

Igoogle12345 Apple dashboard2

Android3 Icalender4

Wiki.Nus1 (confluence)

Typepad1 Bebo35 Pageflakes145

Google desktop4

Palm3 CSV4

Livejournal15

Multipy15 Live.com2 Opera2 YAML4

Ning1 Nexus (NUS endorsed)?

Yahoowidgets23

Googlemap4

Hi53 My yahoo5

Friendster5

Via 1. Widgetbox , 2. Netvibes , 3. Iwidgets 4. Dapper 5.Sprouts

On webpage

On Blogger

Adding widgets to Social networking sites

On Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=556068025&ref=profile

On Myspace

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=394134895

On Bebo

http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=8404708977

Adding widgets to custom homepages

On Netvibes

http://www.netvibes.com/aarontay#General

On igoogle

http://www.google.com/ig

On Pageflakes

http://www.pageflakes.com/

In Nexus

http://nexus/default.aspx

On NUS.wiki (confluence)

http://wiki.nus.edu.sg/display/~clbtcha/Sample+widget+on+nus.wiki

On Opera

Widget on desktop

Putting widgets on your desktopWindows Vista

Google gadgets (google desktop)

Yahoo Widgets (Konfabulator)

Apple dashboard

NUS related Adding to Microsoft sharepoint (instructions

)

Adding to NUS.Wiki (instructions)

Adding to Nexus (NUS customized home page)

Start

Put RSS feed into widget maker

e.g. Widgetbox

Content available in RSS?

Use screen scraper

e.g. Dapper

Further processing

(aggregation, filtering, ranking) required?

Use yahoopipes, postrank etc

End

No

No

Yes

Yes

How to create widgets without programmingStep 1 : Obtain data/content - Needs to be in RSS format to be dynamic.

Content available in RSS/ATOM/JSON etc ? If No go to step 2 , otherwise go to Step 3

Step 2 : Do screenscaping of required data. Use Dapper or feedity to convert htm page to RSS feed.

Step 3 : Aggregate, filter, manipulate, rank, RSS feeds – You might want to combine different feeds from different sources (e.g. results from Google scholar, Scopus, web of science), filter/de-dupe etc. Use Yahoopipes, Postrank etc.

Step 4: Enter RSS feed into one of the following widget generators Widgetbox, Netvibes, Iwidget Dapper, Popfly. (advanced, requires Microsoft Silverlight)

Step 5 : Do some minor adjustment s to color, font and you are done.

• Microsoft Popfly• Yahoo pipes

More advanced tools

Microsoft Popfly

Popfly capabilitiesAllows you to create more flexible widgets

by combining content.

Combine and filter images, video, text from flickr, twitter, youtube etc

Rumoured to be discontinued soon?

Sample widget created by popfly

Sample widget – Carrousel of book jackets from recently added Economics books

YahoopipesCombine, filter rss/json feeds from different

sources.

Alters output

Can be output in various formats including RSS, to netvibes, igoogle, myyahoo.

Yahoopipes source

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.edit?_id=02d2b020817aa3511b6647f33a631fd5

Yahoopipes example

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=02d2b020817aa3511b6647f33a631fd5

Problems of using widgets• Slows down loading – Information is drawn

from third party.• Content from third party might go down

(e.g. Youtube, Slideshare goes down)• Intermediate services such as

screenscapers, Widget maker might be down.

• Widgets require either Javascript, Flash or rarely silverlight. Some users might not have javascript turned on, or lack the flash plugin.

Links/resourceshttps://team.nus.edu.sg/library/socialsciences/

Tutorials/subjectguidewidgets.htm

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=5&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwiki.cali.org%2Fcalicon08%2Fuploads%2FSessions%2FWidgets-CALI2008v5a.ppt&ei=hnzDSc67NNiUkAXyg4XHDA&usg=AFQjCNGh7DYW-ycwUS2fUqUZgAoajmgS5Q&sig2=ZM8P2JVniHmCMHnG4YAguw