This session, presented by Jason Clark and Tom Donahue, covered how the  Montana State University Librarians built and different Google Gadgets and other search widgets. They also covered some of the Firefox extensions that they were able to make.

The gist of the presentation was that they were looking for a way to reach patrons at their point of need. They wanted to bring the library out of the library website and into places that the patrons already use regularly, like Facebook, iGoogle, and Blackboard.

I was very interested in this lecture because it is similar to what I have been doing with the guide project. I have been all about Google Gadgets lately and it was nice to see how others were applying the technology. They were adding the Gadgets in other places that I had not considered, like Facebook. Another thing that I really liked was the tools page they created. It is a page that contains all of the Gadgets, Widgets, and Facebook apps that they have created, complete with download and instillation instructions.

I like the idea of creating a central spot were users can get the script tags to embed the tools in their own pages. I think that adding a widgets tab to our own Blackboard Tool Kit is an idea worth exploring. We are adding more widgets everyday and it’s a good idea to have a repository of them for librarians, faculty, and students to draw from.

blackboard, gadgets, Internet Librarian 2008, Widgets Hide