title: retrieve selected items from jquery MultiSelect
body: <p>Simple question but I just can't find the answer. I'm using the 'a beautiful site' jquery multiSelect dropdown select plugin &lt;<a href="http://labs.abeautifulsite.net/archived/jquery-multiSelect/demo/" rel="nofollow">link</a>>. Everything seems to work using:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$(document).ready(function() {
      $("#contact).multiSelect(); 
  });
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Then in the body:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;select id="contact" name="contact_list[]" multiple="multiple" size="5"&gt; 
    &lt;option value=""&gt;&lt;/option&gt;
    &lt;option value="Alekseev"&gt;Alekseev&lt;/option&gt;
    &lt;option value="Bettis"&gt;Bettis&lt;/option&gt;
    &lt;option value="Chlachula"&gt;Chlachula&lt;/option&gt;
    &lt;option value="Kohfeld"&gt;Kohfeld&lt;/option&gt;
    &lt;option value="Maher"&gt;Maher&lt;/option&gt;
    &lt;option value="Muhs"&gt;Muhs&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;/select&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The simple question is: how do I retrieve a JavaScript array of the selected values equivalent to the simple non-jquery:</p>
  
  <pre><code>var contactName = document.getElementById('contact').value;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Appreciate any help.</p>