Searchlight is a small app that automatically shows you VIVO profiles related to the page you’re reading.

Searchlight works as a bookmarklet, so there is nothing to install. Once you’ve added the bookmark, simply click it whenever you’re reading an interesting article online.

The real magic happens when you begin highlighting text inside the article.

Update: Google Chrome has made changes that require a new bookmarklet. If you experience problems, simply delete your old bookmark and re-add it below. (October 15, 2011)

Add the bookmark

Click and drag this button to your browser’s Bookmarks Toolbar:

VIVO Searchlight

Note: If your browser’s Bookmarks Toolbar or "Favorites Bar" is hidden, look under the "View" menu for an option to unhide it.

Searchlight does not yet function properly with Internet Explorer 8 and below.

About Searchlight

Searchlight was developed by Miles Worthington in response to the 2011 VIVO Conference call for apps.

The app was written entirely in Javascript, with server-side functionality built on top of node.js. The search system was built using ElasticSearch.

A number of excellent open-source projects were used:

Project status

While Searchlight is already fully-functional, there is plenty of room for improvement. In particular, the algorithm used for matching text to VIVO profiles needs further tuning. In the meantime Searchlight may yield some odd results.