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| My stumbling block, and it's a big one, is that toolbars are so platform and browser-specific that I feel like I am betraying some part of the computing community by such desktop excursions. Exorcise your guilt, you might say, and go completely into linux/mozilla with such a creation. Although I would love to be in a world where that would help our library's user base, the reality is that our own statistics tell us over 90 per cent of them use a combination of IE and windows. Fodder for getting more linux user groups on campus, maybe, but as a service organization I think our library has to concentrate on functions that are usable to most of the campus. Plus, I am getting seriously addicted to OS/X and Mozilla, and I find it very hard to work on anything that doesn't stare me in the face constantly.
Dan's great linkstacks experiment has some connection here, as with the toolbar, the hook is the convenience of using an application without having to work very hard. This is why I keep coming back to bookmarklets, they are so easy to deploy, and are somewhat platform and browser-independent (if you are careful enough). One idea is to stuff all the platform-specific stuff into helper applications. So you would lay out an HTML-based toolbar, have a bookmarklet open it up on the desktop, and then use a series of MIME definitions to launch the application that is appropriate for the platform. For example, checking the contents of the clipboard against the library catalogue, or docking the toolbar in a corner of the desktop and keeping it up front. It means some venturing into desktop-specific ground, but with small steps and well-defined paces.
So what do y'all think about toolbars and related plumbing issues?
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