LibGuides: Using Images from Syndetics vs. Amazon
September 30, 2009
We licensed LibGuides from Springshare this past summer as part of a complete redesign of our library’s site. It has been a great addition and gives our subject liaisons complete control over the content they want/need to share with the students and faculty in their subject areas. One question that quickly arose was the possibility of using book cover images from Syndetics, versus the default images available from Amazon in the “Books From The Catalog” box. Staff members in our library systems dept. came up with an initial solution which I was able to further customize. Below is the result of that process.
- Add the “Books from the Catalog” box to your guide
- After adding the box, click “Add a New Book”
- Complete all of the relevant boxes for your title
- The key is using the “Covert Art (Optional)” box. Instead of clicking the Amazon button, you’ll need to get the URL from Syndetics:
- Open a new tab or browser window and go to the catalog
- Search for the book in the catalog and go into the item record
- Click “Reviews and More” under the small Syndetics cover image
- Click the “Cover image” link. This will take you to the large image you’ll use for your image in LibGuides
- Right click on the cover image and select “Properties”
- Highlight or double click to select all of the text in the “Location” field and and copy the link by pressing ctrl-c or right-click and “copy”
- You’re now ready to go back to LibGuides in your other tab or browser window
- Back in the “Add a New Book” box, paste the link you copied in the “location” field from the Syndetics cover image
- Hit the return key, click on a different field, or just click the Add Book button if you’re finished and ready to close the box
Bonus feature – by copying and pasteing the link from the catalog to the item record in the “URL (Optional)” field it will make book title and cover image link back to the catalog item record!
