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40 Useful Firefox Add-Ons for Librarians – Part One
Firefox has quickly become my number-one browser since I grudgingly tried it out a few months ago. It is very adaptable and customizable between all of its add-ons and themes, and is compatible with just about every application that I use regularly with the exception of my Settlers of Catan game from MSN. But by the same token, with over 1,900 add-ons, it’s difficult to wade through them all to find the ones which might be useful. Here are a few suggestions to get you started, but please feel free to leave your favorites in the comments!
General Interest Add-ons
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Twitterbar – This handy add-on lets you post to Twitter from your browser’s address bar, even allowing you to post URL tweets (puts “Currently Browsing:” in front of the url). For those Twitter-holics out there, you might also check out Twitbin which is a Twitter sidebar for your browser, also very nice. |
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Screengrab – Similar to the SnagIt program, this add-on will save webpages as images. You can choose to save the entire page, regions of a page, or just what is visible in the window. Sweet! |
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FoxSaver – This pleasant add-on turns your idle browser into a digital photo frame which displays the FoxSaver photos or your own. |
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Facebook Toolbar – This toolbar add-on integrates the popular social network into your browser providing a search box, notifications, a friends interface, and a share button enabling you to quickly post pages to your profile. |
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FoxyTunes – Recently released as part of the Firefox Campus Edition which bundled this along with Zotero and StumbleUpon add-ons for college students, FoxyTunes lets you manipulate just about any media player from within your browser. Listen to music while you surf, search for lyrics, videos, bios, etc. with a right click – works with iTunes, Windows Media Player, Real Player, Pandora and many others. |
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Map + – View a Yahoo! Map of any address you select without having to open a new browser or tab. For those of you who prefer Google maps, check out MapThis. |
| Digg This! – For those who love to digg stories, this add-on will be most convenient – adding the digg option to the right-click menu, Tools menu, and optionally to the toolbar. | |
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Snap Shots for Firefox – From the folks at Snap, this add-on provides you with a Snap preview of a website whenever you mouseover a link – see images and descriptions before clicking into any link. |
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Fireshot – This amazing add-on takes screenshots of webpages and then give you the tools to annotate them, and enables you to save them in multiple file formats. |
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PDF Download – This time-saver will offer you a choice for viewing .pdf files as .pdf documents or HTML, as well as whether you want to view it in your browser, in your .pdf reader, or download it. |
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Meebo – This add-on sets up all your buddy lists in a persistant browser sidebar so you can IM while you surf, also allowing you to drag-and-drop images and webpage links onto your friends. |
| Email This! – This time-saving add-on will send recipients the link, title, and highlighted text of any webpage you are viewing using any of these email programs: GMail, Google Apps GMail, Yahoo, Hotmail and Stand-Alone Mail Clients like Outlook Express, Thunderbird, & More. Works through a toolbar or right-click menu, or a browser menu. | |
Stay tuned for more…
November 8th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
hmmmm…I’m a new librarian and just by looking at this list it seems librarians tweet, grab images, listen to music, chat to their friends and download pdfs
My favourite addons are FoxLingo (webpage language translator), WizzRSS reader (so I can track blogs like this one), and the Web Developer add-on (so i can maintain the library website more efficiently)
November 15th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Ellysa, I have sent an e-mail to the library chief at Katrineholm, Sweden’s main library about you useful list of Firefox add-ons. Alas, currently they use IE for the browser on the library computers there but perhaps that will change. Time will tell.
Thank you for coming up with that list of IE add-ons. Be sure to visit my blog sometime if you have a moment or two. Again, thank you.
January 10th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
These are some great suggestions…not only for librarians, but for all twitter users! Thanks!
February 3rd, 2008 at 1:14 am
Good stuff! I really like these add-ons:
*Picnik
*Nuke Anything Enhanced
*ScribeFire
*And of course, Greasemonkey!
*Flashblock
Nuke Anything and Flashblock are my favorites as they make my browsing a lot less annoying.
March 29th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
ohhh.. love to digg and twitter
July 16th, 2008 at 2:43 am
I love fireshot!