[Yulcat-l] FW: [Desktop] New Cataloger's Desktop feature

[Arakawa, Steven]

I haven't tried this out yet, but it sounds useful. If I understand correctly, shortcuts are all recorded in a master file, so if someone has already created one to your target, you should be able to use it without having to go through the steps of creating it all over again. As time passes, the number of shortcuts in the master file should grow, thus increasing the chances of finding a preexisting url/shortcut at the beginning of the process & saving a lot of steps.

Steven Arakawa 
Catalog Librarian for Training & Documentation
Catalog & Metadata Services, SML, Yale University
P.O. Box 208240 New Haven, CT 06520-8240  
(203)432-8286 steven.arakawa at yale.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: Cataloger's Desktop Forum [mailto:DESKTOP at loc.gov] On Behalf Of Bruce C Johnson
Sent: Friday, February 05, 2010 3:13 PM
To: DESKTOP at LISTSERV.LOC.GOV
Subject: [Desktop] New Cataloger's Desktop feature

Colleagues:

	I am pleased to announce that an important feature has been
added to Cataloger’s Desktop. This feature, which the development team
has been internally referring to as “Drag and drop”, allows the
subscriber to create shortcuts that they can either drag to their
computer’s desktop, or bookmark, or put on their Bookmark & Saved Search
list, or copy into other documents, or link to from websites external to
Cataloger’s Desktop.

	To see this in action, open any Cataloger’s Desktop resource and
go to a spot that you would like to return to in the future. Now have a
look at the toolbar.  You will see an icon towards the middle of the
toolbar that looks like an arrow enclosed in a square.  This icon has an
ALT code that says “Create URL/Shortcut”. If you click on this icon, a
dialog screen will open in the rail pane to the left of the document. 
From here you can either accept a pre-existing shortcut (if there is
one) or create a new shortcut with a name of your choosing.  Remember
that the web does not allow certain characters (such as an asterisk or a
backslash), and if you include a space in the name, an underscore will
be added there for you.

	Once you have clicked the “Save address” button on the bottom of
the screen, you will be taken to a second screen that gives you the
choice of copying the web address to another document or application, or
drag a shortcut to your computer’s desktop, or create a bookmark.  It’s
that easy.

	Once a shortcut has been created, you can delete it from your
list of shortcuts, but that does not delete it from the master file. If
you have created a shortcut in error and you’re certain that it should
be removed, please contact me (Bruce Johnson) offlist at bjoh at loc.gov . 

	One thing to keep in mind: The drag and drop feature allows you
to create a web address for specific spots within documents for the
Desktop core resources (i.e. LCRI, MARC formats, SHM, AACR2, etc.).  For
all web-based resources (such as the Getty thesauri, the LC catalog,
AMICUS), you can create a custom URL for the resource, but not the
specific spot within the resource.

	Our hard working translators will be translating the drag and
drop dialog into French, German, and Spanish.  These will be put into
production once they have been received.

	Please let us know if you have any questions about this
function.  As always we’re working hard to improve the usefulness of
Cataloger’s Desktop.  Please let us know if you have ideas for improving
the service.

Bruce Johnson

PS: A heavy snowstorm is bearing down on Washington DC and most LC staff
have already left for the day.  (I am writing this from home.)  There is
no one in the office currently to answer phone calls or emails.  We’ll
see you on Monday.

Bruce Chr. Johnson
Policy & Standards Division
The Library of Congress
Washington, DC 20540-4263 USA

202-707-1652 (voice)  bjoh at loc.gov
202-707-3959 (fax)