The presenter for this session is Ying Z. Lin, Electronic Resources and Information Literacy Librarian from Maryville University.
People use mobile phones, especially iphones to get information, so libraries need to go where the users are. Sometimes all the user has is a mobile phone and it is all they can use where they are. Libraries need to provide that information or they will not be used. Users wil find other resources to use.
Mobile Components - smart phone (a phone that is able to use applications in order to find information)
Web App - what you can find on the web to download. Example: http://m.mit.edu
This is what a lot of Universisties use because of cost and time.
Native App - What is developed initially for the phone. Download and install it and can use it across different phones.
Network 3G and 4G - Allows you to call and access the internet at the same time. Only difference between 3G and 4G is the speed. 4G needs to be at least 4x faster than 3G. At this time really can't tell the difference because of the phone rather than the network. The phones at this time can not handle the amount of information.
Important vs. Practical
-Important: what users care about
-Practical: what can we do to best satisfy them with our limited resources
When speaker went to look at to see what libraries had mobile apps and found that a lot of libraries hide their resources.
12 common library website features on their mobile pages. Research on this done in Nov. 2009
-Catalog
-Database Search
-Subject Guides
-Computer Availability
-IM a Librarian
-Text a Librarian
-Feedback
-News/Features
-Hours
-Contact Us
-Help/How to
-Available Computer
What Maryville Mobile page has: Directions, Databases, Hours of Operation, news and Events, and Ask a Librarian
The hours and the news and events are done within a mobile blog page.
Why did they do it that way? They have 5 out of the 6 highest ranking features except the catalog. They did not include the catalog because they can't really make it mobile. Need extra money in ordder to make an open API.
When repeated the research on mobile library pages a year later, the most rapid growth on what was included was text a librarian, database search, and news & events.
More and more libraries are using blogs for their news & events, which means these blogs can be mobilized very easily.
Took a closer look at the catalog search feature. Out of 29 libraries, 20 had the library catalog feature, but only 14 had a real mobile catalog. On the database search, 22 out of 29 libraries had this feature on their mobile page, but only 20 had a real mobile database search.
Out of the 20 real mobile database searches, 15 of them provide users with a partial list of all their database. These are the databases which come with mobile interfaces.
The Trends
On the interface side more icons ad graphics are friendlier and easier to read than text. Citation tools are going mobile. A lot of universities are making a separate page for medical/health professions.
What Now?
Practical: Implement the hours, locations features and give links to databases tha provide mobile interfaces, which from most vendors is free. The important part is to take a look at the discovery service, and text a librarian would be a good way to promote ourselves.
What about Native Apps?
It can do everything that was talked about, plus you could utilize the camera as a scanner to scan the barcode to do self-checkout or to scan the ISBN of a book to see if your library has it, or request it. You would also be able to use smart phone to locate a book's specific shelf location inside the library.
yzhang@maryville.edu
This was a great presentation. Filled with information about apps in general and also about how libraries are using them. I don't know how this speaker was able to provide all the information she did a the little time provided, but I am so glad that she did!
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