In order to get a picture of the mobile library landscape, the mobile offering from a variety of academic institutions has been investigated. The aim of this is to understand what institutional libraries are currently doing to provide mobile services and identifying those services which The University of Edinburgh could benefit from.
North Carolina State University
NCSU have created a mobile library website which looks similar to a mobile application. The design is very similar to smart phone interfaces and this gives the website a modern look. Services which the library provide in addition to the catalogue include room booking, an instant messaging chat system with librarians and PC availability. Interestingly they also provide more unconventional services such as group finder and live webcam feeds. The group finder section helps users locate study groups in the library and the live webcams make it possible from users to monitor locations of the library remotely, including the cafe. It has been reported that the webcams generated over a third of mobile page views in the first 8 weeks that the mobile services were introduced suggesting that the webcams can be very useful to users (Meier, 2010).
Amsterdam University Library
Driek Heesakkers recently presented the case study of Amsterdam’s mobile library strategy during CILIP’s Executive briefing day, Becoming Upwardly Mobile – can libraries rise to the challenge? Amsterdam University Library‘s short-term mobile strategy resulted in a mobile web presence from a budget of €1500. This interim mobile library website provides a number of services including access to the OPAC, a simple search interface, a link to the library’s social networking page on Twitter, information on library opening hours, location, contact details and PC availability throughout the library. In addition to these basic services, the catalogue provides a simplified advanced search feature with a drop-down menu and access to the user’s library account. The interface of the search is simple with basic information in search results.
Huddersfield University and University of Bath
Huddersfield University have taken another approach to providing services on mobile devices. Using QR codes in and around their library they are able to provide links to digital information. This includes digital copies of print journals, links to mobile friendly videos and other useful digital resources. The QR codes appear at the end of book shelves, signage and on printed hand-outs. They even provide a QR code with a video on using the print credit machine (see image below). Although this technology may not be well-known among students it does have the potential to bring useful resources to students through their mobiles. As smartphones become more common place, the barrier to this technology is likely to be significantly lowered.
The University of Bath have also been using QR codes in their library. Their project explores the idea of using QR codes to help users locate items more easily by launching a map of the library on user’s mobiles. They also carried out a cross-institutional study which revealed that students are becoming more aware of QR codes and find the idea of using QR codes very appealing.
Image credit: Andrew Walsh, University of Huddersfield
Cambridge University
Cambridge University is one of the other UK university’s mentioned on M-Libraries wiki that have developed a mobile friendly site of their digital library. The mobile site focusses on allowing users to search the catalogue and access their account on the move. Notably they also highlight the benefits of logging in to the site for extra benefits including renewing items on loan, make and manage requests and build a list of items that can be emailed to any address. This would be particularly useful for research students who might otherwise write down their search results onto paper. The catalogue search is fairly simple with the addition of thumbnail images of book covers where relevant. Other useful features which are provided in the item details include a link to the Google Books preview of the full text and a map highlighting where the shelf mark is located within the library. Clearly some thought has been made to consider what information user’s need on their mobile when designing the site.
A comparitive analysis of library mobile services in use in higher education was conducted by California Digital Library. They found that mobile library services fell into five categories 1. Library mobile website; 2. text messaging services; 3. mobile catalogue search; 4. access to resources, and 5. new tools and services. Simple information such as hours, direction, map, news and floor plans are common in many mobile library websites. Jeff Penka from OCLC supports this idea when he commented at CILIP’s Executive briefing day that “The library catalogue isn’t the only service (users) want to access via a mobile, they want to find out which computers are free, paying fines, deal with reservations, see opening hours too.”
Catalogue search is also a popular mobile service which is provided by academic digital libraries. This supports the findings from a survey conducted by Cambridge University which found that 55% of respondents were in favour of bring able to access the library catalogue from a mobile phone (Mills, 2009).
A list of resources relevant to mobile library services have been collected and compiled into a Delicious links folder. These links are open to everyone and I encourage you to add other resources I may have missed. Thanks
http://www.delicious.com/lorraine_p/bundle:UX2.0%20Mobile%20Research
