MIT Libraries' Betas

The MIT Libraries are experimenting with new technologies to help make access to information easier. The tools below are in "beta" form - they are still being tinkered with, but we'd like you to try them out and tell us what you think!

What works well? What doesn't? Have you written any scripts or tools yourself? Let us know! Email us at betas-lib@mit.edu.

Listen to podcasts on scholarly communication

Ellen Duranceau, the MIT Libraries' Scholarly Publishing and Licensing Consultant, has put together a series of podcasts on the topic of scholarly communication. Full descriptions and links to all episodes of the podcast series are available through the Libraries' news blog. To subscribe to the MIT Libraries’ Podcasts on Scholarly Publishing, paste this link into iTunes or another podcast reader: http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/6772/.

Search for journals in Vera with the Firefox search bar

Did you know that you can add search engines to your Firefox toolbar? You can also add a search engine to your Firefox browser to search Vera, the collection of online journals and databases in the MIT Libraries.

To download the search bar, visit the MIT Vera search plugin page.

Note: This search plugin will only work with the Firefox web browser, and you will need to have MIT web certificates.

Special thanks to John Hawkinson for developing the plugin!

Add a Firefox browser bookmarklet button to get easier off-campus access to journals

If you're often off-campus and need to get your browser to route you through the Libraries' proxy server, you may want to add a bookmarklet button to your Firefox browser to enable quicker access.

When you're on a web page that you'd like to redirect through the Libraries' proxy server, clicking this button will automatically reload the web page. To add the button, follow our FAQ on Inserting the Proxy String with a Firefox Bookmarklet.

Learn to use the libraries - YouTube style!

Fall 2006: A beta of this project was conducted with tutorials for students in the class 3.091/3.093. Feedback from those students will help us as we create more tutorials.

Summer 2007: Some tutorials are loaded into our libraries space in MIT's TechTV (MIT's TechTV is itself a beta!)

Fall 2007: A full suite of tutorials on how to use library resources and services are available on our Video Tutorials page - give us feedback on what you think!

Search the MIT Libraries from your Google homepage

Download a gadget that will allow you to search Barton and Vera directly from your Google homepage, or any other webpage that you've created.

Facebook application

The MIT Libraries Facebook application contains search boxes for the Barton web catalog and for Vera, the collection of online journals and databases, along with links to Your Account and Ask Us for research help.

If you already have a Facebook account, you're only a few clicks away from adding the MIT Libraries application.

Special thanks to Rob Wolfe and Todd Rautenberg for developing this application.

MIT Course Catalogue Pickr

Want an efficient and informative way to select and organize your classes for the upcoming semester? The Course Pickr is an interactive tool designed to help students organize their class schedules. It was developed at CSAIL by the Haystack Project, and is based on technology from Project SIMILE, a joint project of CSAIL and the MIT Libraries Digital Library Research Group (DLRG).

Students have access to course descriptions, times, locations, and data such as difficulty and units. Using a calendar, students can build schedules that allow them to see potential scheduling conflicts. The final calendars are easily printable for future reference.

Please note: this tool is in beta; consult MIT’s course catalogue for official data.

For more information, contact Amy Stout, astout@mit.edu.

Virtual Reference page available in the social bookmarking system: "del.icio.us."

To integrate our resources with the social bookmarking system "del.icio.us", we have recreated our Virtual Reference site there. del.icio.us users can easily add us to their network to keep up with new resources being added to the site. An RSS feed is provided for for users who wish to subscribe.

The Virtual Reference Collection page on our site is being enhanced as well: We are using a tool called "FeedDigest" to send the links from our del.icio.us account via RSS into our web page. This makes it easier for the librarians authoring the page to keep it up to date. They simply enter new links into the del.icio.us account, and FeedDigest provides the glue that makes them also appear on our web page.

RSS feeds for new books

Check out the latest and greatest books that have recently arrived in the MIT Libraries! See: Recent Additions to the Collections.

We have RSS feeds for many different subjects - you can even find out about new music CDs and DVDs. Don’t know what RSS is or how to use it? No problem - you can simply view new items via the link above. You can also have lists of new items emailed to you on a regular basis.

New Humanities Virtual Browsery The Humanities Virtual Browsery has been revamped! In addition to highlighting new books, the redesign also introduces several new features: - an RSS feed - the ability to comment on books, and discuss them with the rest of the MIT community - links to informative book reviews - information about the availability of the book in the Humanities Library - links to other books by the same author

Coming later this year...

• More MIT Libraries screencast tutorials
• WorldCat Local, an experimental interface to the Barton catalog

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This page was last updated on 08/22/08