Jason Clark and Timothy Donahue, librarians from Montana State University, use iGoogle Gadgets to distribute library services outside of the library. They are interested in reaching students “in their own environment.”

Their gadgets are promoted on the MSU library homepage. There are nine gadgets that they have created and posted on their site. These gadgets provide users access to library services like the catalog, databases, and library maps. Their first gadget was a tabbed search box that searches through the catalog, a metasearch, a citation finder, and Google Scholar (proxied). Their second gadget was a flash based floor map. Users mouse over the virtual stacks and they see what call numbers are on that row. They also have a blog aggregator that brings together their blog, Twitter, and Flickr streams.

For the programmers in the audience they showed how to access the source code for each Gadget. It can be found on the Gadget’s home page under the View Source link. This can be useful for establishing a code base on which you can create your own Gadget. Additionally, all of the code that Jason has written is available at http://www.lib.montana.edu/~jason/files.php

Lastly, they showed a way that Google Analytics can be used to track the usage of individual gadgets.  This data could be useful for establishing the “worth” of Gadgets.  It can then be used to convince skeptical librarians that they should direct students to the Gadget.

Internet Librarian 2009, Widgets and Gadgets Hide