Cubberley Education Library

LibX is a Firefox plugin that helps you conduct your research more quickly and efficiently. It allows you to:

• Search Socrates from the toolbar
• Drag-and-drop citations onto a "magic button", that will then pull up the article or book for you from Stanford-accessible database(s)
• For easier off-campus access to some sites, right-click to "reload via EZProxy"

Installing LibX

1. Go to libx.org and click the Public Editions link.
   
2. Choose the Stanford University Edition (currently on page 10)
   
3. Click the link that says, "Click here to install LibX Stanford University Edition Version 1.x.x"
   
4. You'll get a warning that reads, "Firefox prevented this site (libx.org) from asking you to install software on your computer." Click the Edit Options... button.
   
5. Click the Allow button to allow libx.org to install Firefox add-ons, then close the Allowed sites window. (Note: there should not be a www in front of libx.org.)
   
6. Click the "Click here to install LibX Stanford University Edition Version 1.x.x" link again to install LibX. Click Install Now
   
   • Note: if you get a "Download Error" at this point, see this troubleshooting document
   
7. Click Restart Firefox to finish installing LibX.
   
8. Woo hoo - LibX is installed! Let's use it!

Using LibX with Socrates

From the Toolbar

The simplest way to use LibX is to perform searches directly in the toolbar. If you're looking for the Handbook of International School Psychology:

1. Type "handbook of international school psychologyy" in the search field
2. Choose Title from the dropdown menu on the left
3. Click Search Socrates on the right
4. Bam! You're taken directly to the item record in Socrates

Combined Searches

If you click the little blue arrow button to the right of the search field, you can add additional search fields to create combined searches.

Drag-and-Drop

If you don't want to type in the search field, you can drag-and-drop text on to the Search Socrates button to perform a keyword search. Highlight the text on each line below (outlined for your benefit), and then drag it onto the Search Socrates button.

• The Praeger Handbook of Education and Psychology
• Damon, William
• Harvard Educational Review
• Child Development
• 0224020404

LibX Embedded Cues and Autolinks

Embedded Cues

On sites such as amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com, LibX places a small "cue" like this () next to book titles. You can click that cue and it will look the item up in Socrates. Try it below:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• New York Times Book Review

Autolinks

If LibX detects what appears to be an ISBN or ISSN in a webpage, it will automatically turn that number into a hyperlink. Clicking the hyperlink will allow you to search that ISBN/ISSN in Socrates. Try it yourself!

• 0162-3737
• 0362-6784
• 0009-3920
• 0002-8312
• 0162-3532
• 9780252032004
• 9780231141208
• 0271025212

LibX Contextual Menus

You also can search Socrates by Keyword, Title, Author, Subject, Call Number, or Journal Title from a contextual menu. Simply highlight the text, right-click it (control-click on a Mac), and choose the appropriate search. Note that LibX even attempts to put author names into Lastname Firstname order.

• Teachers as cultural workers : letters to those who dare teach
• David Perkins
• Analysis of variance

The Google Scholar or "Magic Button"

Saving the best for last, the "magic button" is a drag-and-drop SFX resolver. What does that mean? If you drag-and-drop the article title (highlighted below), LibX will search Google Scholar for the article. It will then attempt to locate the article in a database that you have access to through the Stanford Libraries. One more click and you often can have the article in full-text. Try it out!

• Cook, T.D. (2002). Randomized experiments in educational policy research: A critical examination of the reasons that the educational evaluation community has offered for not doing them. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 24(3), 175-199.

Even more amazing, this works from PDFs, MS Word, and text editors as well. Scroll down to the References section of the "Randomized experiments in educational policy research" article and find the second entry by the author Campbell (Cognitive and school outcomes...). Highlight the title of the article in the PDF, then click-and-drag the highlighted text from the PDF onto the Scholar button (this sometimes takes some creative arrangement of application windows). Doing so brings up a link to the article in JSTOR, where you can read it online in full-text.

Finally, if a version of the article is available in a non-restricted area of the web, LibX will pull it up for you directly. Try it with the citation below.

• Mendenhall, B. (2001)Technology: Creating new models in higher education. National Governor's Association.

Accessing Restricted Sites from Off-Campus via EZProxy

This feature is beautiful in its simplicity; however, it will only work if you are off-campus. Right-click the ERIC link below and choose "Go to www.csa.com via EZProxy". Enter your SUNet ID and password at the WebLogin screen, and you're browsing ERIC just as if you were on campus.

• ERIC

You also can right-click on a blank area of the screen to reload the current page via EZProxy. Try it by clicking the Education Full Text link below normally, then right-clicking in a blank area of the page to reload it via EZProxy.

• Education Full Text

Not all databases are supported by EZProxy, but SULAIR maintains a list of available sites.

More LibX Resources

As you can see, LibX is very helpful. Some more resources are listed below to help you get the most out of LibX.

• LibX.org
• University of Michigan tutorial.