ProQuest is not the first database vendor to provide a search box for institutions to embed on their library web pages. But this one is not your usual take-it-or-leave-it bit of html code.
This one is customisable via a web form. Choose the databases you are interested in, limit to full text only and/or peer-reviewed, specify your proxy prefix, optional search terms, optional logo, colours. Then see if you like the preview and click to generate code.
This could be useful for subject sites in a learning management system - provided that your proquest databases are the best you have for the topic.
What I want next is Serials Solutions to provide customisable search widgets for Central Search. So teaching staff can choose a variety of my institutions databases and various other parameters to build their own widgets for their subjects - but it has to be as easy as ProQuest's. At least if they could get us started and we could provide our own institutional logos etc.
It was hard enough coding a search box for Central Search to plug into Blackboard - let alone providing these search options. I'd love to hear from any Central Search sites that have done something like this.
Comments
I'm curious what kinds of customization you would look for?
The output would be code that could be added as a module in Blackboard or similar, or on a subject web site, or on a subject blog.
And no site would have to write their own php form - they could just generate it and paste it in.