The new notecards component in NoodleBib is now available to all subscribers!

We hope that you have some time to play with the new feature this summer — please feel free to e-mail us with questions or to report problems so that we can work out any issues before the start of the school year. Note that the notecard feature relies on technologies that are only supported by these browsers:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer: Versions 6.x and higher (not supported on Mac)
• Mozilla Firefox: Version 1.5 and higher (PC and Mac)
• Netscape Browser: Version 8.1 and higher

We’ve updated the NoodleBib user’s guide. We strongly encourage teachers and librarians to read the new chapter on notecards to gain an understanding of how the new feature compliments the existing citation software. Keep in mind that if you don’t want to use the feature at your school or library, you can turn it off through the subscription management area NoodleBib Customization option.

The user’s guide also covers several other features that were added since August last year. For example, if you aren’t aware of the optional citation labels (”tags”) feature introduced back in December, now you can learn all about it. Citation labels are disabled by default, so you need to enable them in the subscription management area if you want to use them at your location.

The static NoodleBib tour is being replaced with a series of Flash tutorials. One is up now and the others will be added in the next few weeks.

The online knowledge base has not yet been updated for this release — I’ll post a note here when that task is complete. Update: The knowledge base has now been updated (8/4/06).

Write us and let us know what you think!

This summer’s NoodleBib update (scheduled for Saturday, July 30th) includes a new feature that many of you have been anticipating — notecards! If you are someone who tried Google Notebook when it was released recently and thought “wow, something like this would be useful for taking notes for a research paper” then this is just the thing for you!

In a nutshell:

1. Link notecards to sources in your bibliography (or create “thought” cards that aren’t associated with a particular entry).
2. View notecards alongside bibliography entries (in the My Bibliography view), or organize notecards into main ideas (”clusters”) in a separate My Notes view.
3. Copy and paste anything (images, tables, formatting, etc.) from the Web into your notecards. Separate “Quote,” “Paraphrase,” and “My Ideas” fields to promote good notetaking skills and help prevent plagiarism.
4. Save notecards as an RTF file to open and manipulate in your word processor.
5. Apply any number of tags to each notecard (and then later search notecards by tag(s)).
6. Dynamic user interface similar to Google Notebook (organize notecards into clusters with drag/drop, show/hide details, quick-access links to clusters).
7. Uses AJAX to save your work in the background (no screen refreshes) as you go.
8. Notecards feature can be turned off by the account administrator via the subscription management interface, if it won’t be used.

Here are some preview screenshots of the notecards feature (click the thumbnail to open a larger image):

Note: Since this feature uses cutting-edge DHTML and AJAX technologies, only the following browsers will initially be supported (upgrade to these at your school if you plan to use this feature!):

• Internet Explorer 6+ or 7+
• Firefox 1.5+ (Mac or PC)
• Netscape 8.1+

Debbie presented to a packed room at NECC on Friday (”Beyond Acceptable Use: Developing and Implementing a Plagiarism Policy”). Click here for an overview and links to more information.

Update: A good summary has been written by Suzanne Porath on her blog.