I have already implemented some AJAX pagination in my Rails app by using the example code for the will_paginate plugin--which is apparently using Prototype.

But if I wanted to switch to using jQuery for future additions, I really don't want to have the Prototype stuff sitting around too (yes, I know it's possible). I haven't written a lick of JavaScript in years, let alone looked into Prototype and jQuery... so I could use some help converting this bit into jQuery-compatible syntax:

document.observe("dom:loaded", function() {
  // the element in which we will observe all clicks and capture
  // ones originating from pagination links
  var container = $(document.body)

  if (container) {
    var img = new Image
    img.src = '/images/spinner.gif'

    function createSpinner() {
      return new Element('img', { src: img.src, 'class': 'spinner' })
    }

    container.observe('click', function(e) {
      var el = e.element()
      if (el.match('.pagination a')) {
        el.up('.pagination').insert(createSpinner())
        new Ajax.Request(el.href, { method: 'get' })
        e.stop()
      }
    })
  }
})

Thanks in advance!