Now and then we come across a library that reports our products aren't
working, and we trace the problem to overzealous security or firewall
settings. It's particularly common on catalog-only stations. These kinds of
issues are very hard to track down from a distance.
To address the problem, I made a page that tests whether a given
computer/browser can reach various common library services, including
Syndetics Unbound, NoveList, Google Books, Hathi Trust, etc. At present,
there are 31 of them.
https://www.librarything.com/servicetester.php?type=services
The script works by loading images from each of these domains and seeing if
they arrive—something that can be easily done by JS. It's better than just
clicking links to those services, because the problem is often that very
high browser-security settings prevent cross-domain resource loading.
I hope you find it useful. If you have any other services you'd like me to
add, let me know!
Tim Spalding / LibraryThing
Received on Fri Sep 12 2025 - 13:51:02 EDT