Bookmarklets are small Javascript programs that run when you click on links in the bookmarks bar of your browser (or choose them from your bookmarks menu). Most just do geeky tricks, but here are a few I wrote that may be useful at Evergreen:
Installation Note - If you use a Mac, you can install these bookmarklets in Firefox or Netscape by dragging the links below to the bookmarks bar of the browser, or by holding the mouse down on the link until you get a little menu and choosing "Bookmark this Link".
To install them successfully in Safari, you have to paste the scripts shown below into the address of a bookmark you create yourself. Make a temporary bookmark using any page, and name it whatever you want the label of the eventual bookmarklet to be. Then select and copy the text of the script you want. (It's easy to not include the first letter or the last letter on the line when you select it; if it doesn't work, please try installing it again before you email me.) Use "Show All Bookmarks" on the Bookmarks menu, click once on the address part of your temporary bookmark, pause, then click once again to get the editing cursor in the address part of the bookmark and the whole address selected/highlighted. Then paste the script into the address. (Safari messes up the code if you drag the link into its bookmarks bar or use Control-Click to get a little menu and copy the link that way.)
To install them with Windows 2000 or XP, you right-click on the link to get a contextual menu and then select "Add Bookmark" (Navigator) or "Add to Favorites..." (Internet Explorer). (I use a Mac, and I've only tested them at length on Macs, but they do also seem to work in Internet Explorer 6 and Firefox 1.07 on a Windows XP Pro.)
If you'd really like something else like this or want these to work slightly differently (say
by opening a new window with the library catalog results) let me know. I might see what I can do some time.
As the stuff that you always ignore in the installation programs for new software says - these programs are provided with no warranty express or implied about their functioning; you use them entirely at your own risk, whatever the consequences, including nuclear war. (I do think they're completely safe. They work with Safari 2.0.3, Firefox 1.5.0 and Netscape 7.1 on my Mac, and with IE 6 and Firefox 1.07 on a Windows XP Pro. The worst thing I can imagine happening is that you'd make a list and then not be able to send it, or find the formatting was messed up in your particular email setup, so you had to reformat the email yourself, or even had to go back and just type your order into the web form yourself. The scripts are sensitive to exactly how Amazon formats the pages, so if you find a page they can't handle or they don't work properly for you in some other way I'd appreciate knowing about it: (curtzt@evergreen.edu). The bookmarklets in each person's browser just download and run the actual scripts from my Evergreen web space, so I can fix problems without anybody needing to do anything to his or her own copies.
SaveTextOrder and SendTextOrder - This pair of bookmarklets makes it easier to create and submit lists of texts for program book orders (or just for yourself). SaveTextOrder lets you look up books on Amazon, then click a button to add the order information on them to a list, calculating the new 13 digit ISBN automatically. (The list sits in a browser cookie so you can keep adding books from time to time - only to the same list, though.) When your list is ready, SendTextOrder creates an email to Wendy (with a copy to Penny and you) just like the ones her new web form does (and erases the cookie with that saved list). You can look the e-mail over, add to or correct it, then send it whenever you like. (You can also just copy the finished list out of your email without ever sending it and paste the list into something else, or change the addresses before you hit "Send" to email the list to somebody else or send copies to your teaching partners at the same time).Please test these on a couple of random books first, to see be sure they format the output properly for your particular combination of browser and email program.
Library lookups by title - If you are looking at the page for a book at Amazon.com, and you click one of these bookmarklets, it will search for that title in the Evergreen or the Timberland catalog. The back button will return you to your Amazon page.
Library lookups by ISBN - These may work on other bookstore sites as well as Amazon, but this ISBN search will only look for the particular edition of the book you are looking it (paperback, hardcover, etc...).If you are looking at a page with an ISBN number in it, and you click one of these bookmarklets, it will search for the ISBN of that book in one of our library catalogs. The back button will return you to your previous page.
Other bookmarklets - Many bookmarklets let you do one click dictionary or Wikipedia or Google searches on a selected word or phrase, or web translation service for the current page. If you have a recommendation that you think would be useful for academic browsing at Evergreen (versus just really cool), let me know and I'll post it here.
Technical Notes for geeks - A couple of people have tried using the xISBN codes to do lookups of all the editions of a book. For example, the OpenWorldCat Project. However, my brief look suggests this isn't much help for us, because the catalog records for most books in Summit don't seem to include an ISBN entry. Search bookmarklets based on their server will give you a dozen ISBNs they hope are related to Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections - but only one of them will produce Summit results.