A while back, I posted on the UMN lIbraries toolbar. At yesterday's Web Steering meeting, we discussed creating one for the Libraries. This comes at a time when we are trying to leverage the prominence of library resources as we migrate our new Public computer image to one that mirrors the computer desktop students see in every computer lab on campus.
A customized toolbar would give us the option of promoting and providing ready access to a variety of University and library-specific resources, all nestled conveniently in the user's browser! Imagine how our accessibility will improve with custom toolbars, widgets and a Facebook App. The user will no longer need to to come directly to our site URL to get what they need.
One additional note...another one worth seeing and trying out is the UIUC Libraries Toolbar.
This is good to hear. I saw the UIUC folks give a talk at the cyber zed shed at ACRL and really liked it too.
Two things I esp. like are:
1) they did their research as far as the placement of each item in the toolbar...e.g. Ask a Librarian is just left of center, where it catches the eye
2)this could be a piece into giving us and marketing a more comprehensive virtual reference presence. Folks at the ref retreat talked a lot about kiosks that people could just walk up to and ask a question and ways to market the Ask! service. In a lot of ways, I think that a toolbar like this could do that.