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Tag Archives: Mobile web
Tech Sharecase, 14 July 2011
Attendees
Arthur Downing, Lisa Ellis, Stephen Francoeur, Joseph Hartnett, Jin Ma, Ryan Phillips, Stella Varveris, Michael Waldman
Intro
In advance of the meeting, attendees were asked to focus on the topic of social networks and academy:
- how do students use social networks and which ones are they using now?
- what might students expect of the library and its staff who are on the same social networks (for example, how do they want to interact with an institutional accounts on networks? how do they want to interact with us as library staff with personal/professional accounts on these networks?)
- how do faculty use social networks and which ones are they using now
- how is scholarly communication being altered by the growth of social networks (see, for example, this report by the Centre for the Study of Research Communications at the University of Nottingham titled “Social Networking Sites and their role in Scholarly Communications”pdf)
- how we we use social networks for professional development? for pinging the hive mind?
What We Discussed Regarding Social Networks
- a list of library vendors that have presences on Twitter, Facebook, etc.
- libraries that have Facebook profiles
- academic departments and offices at Baruch that have Facebook profiles
- Bulletin board for reference questions at the home page of the library at Shanghai Normal University
- the video “Hangout” feature in Google+ that Roy Tennant from OCLC used while we met that let him hold an informal video conference call with librarians who wanted to talk about the 856 field.
Mobile Databases Page
We got a preview of the mobile databases page that will link users to library databases that are optimized to work on mobile phones. The page itself is just an ordinary LibGuide page that looks kind of odd in a regular browser but renders in a much more mobile friendly way in a phone’s browser. The draft of the page shown was the result of the second round of usability testing; the release version of the page will be subject to one more round of usability testing.
LibX Toolbar
A new Firefox/IE toolbar is being developed that will let users search the catalog, our e-journals lookup tool, or Bearcat regardless of what site the user happens to be on. Another notable feature is that when the user is on a book page in Amazon or other online booksellers, a Bearcat icon will appear on the screen that when clicked will run an ISBN lookup in the catalog to see if we own a copy of that item.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Facebook, Google, LibX, Mobile library sites, Mobile web, Social network, Tech Sharecase, Twitter
Comments Off on Tech Sharecase, 14 July 2011
Tech Sharecase, 5 March 2010
Attendees
Arthur Downing, Robert Drzewicki, Stephen Francoeur, Ryan Phillips
Mobile Phones
We looked at a report from Gartner that predicted sales of mobile phones with touchscreens are expected to rise 97 percent in 2010. We also wondered if we were able to track how many visitors to the library’s website came there on mobile devices. There is some data to that effect in our library’s website statistics if you look at what browsers and operating systems were used by site visitors, but the data isn’t as complete as we’d hoped it might be. We also talked about how much we know about the extent to which Baruch students have adopted the latest cell phone technology.
Ebooks and Ebook Readers
After looking at a graphic from the New York Times comparing the “economics of producing a book” in print vs. electronic, we had a discussion of our school’s Kindle experiment and what we might do with the Kindles after the semester is over. One idea that was floated was what it might mean were we to load public domain editions of books that are required reading in undergraduate courses (especially ones that are part of the general education curriculum).
We watched a video from Flat World Knowledge about their “open textbooks” that can be freely read online as well as purchased as a file download or a print-on-demand book.
Video Collections
We looked at the way that the Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University has created a “Toolkit” site where screencasts are collected. Each video offers an embed code, making it easy for instructors and librarians to deploy the videos on course websites, course blogs, etc. The embed codes are for the hosted webservice where the video file actually resides (YouTube, etc.). It doesn’t appear that the videos are locally hosted on the Toolkit site.
We also browsed the collection of screencasts that have been uploaded to our library’s YouTube account.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Amazon Kindle, E-books, E-readers, mobile phones, Mobile web, mobile web development, Screencasts, Tech Sharecase, Textbooks, Videos, YouTube Inc
1 Comment
Gartner Releases Top 10 Consumer Mobile Applications for 2012
A Gartner press release has been issued for their October report “Dataquest Insight: The Top Ten Consumer Mobile Applications for 2012.” We don’t have access to the full Gartner report, so this press release gives us a bit more information.
Observing this report, the Gartner Hype Cycles for consumer mobile applications and maybe even simply the increased use of mobile devices in the Newman library, we can safely assume will be responding to this trend in our profession. The top ten applications are listed below.
- Money Transfer
- Location-Based Services
- Mobile Search
- Mobile Browsing
- Mobile Health Monitoring
- Mobile Payment
- Near Field Communication Services
- Mobile Advertising
- Mobile Instant Messaging
- Mobile Music
Also, I attended the Columbia University Libraries Assessment Forum thursday where Michael Lascarides of NYPL spoke about user experiences in his presentation “Uncovering Stories.” He noted in one of his slides, in the past 18 months, mobile users accessing the NYPL website increased sevenfold.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Columbia University Libraries Assessment Forum, Gartner, Michael Lascarides, Mobile search, Mobile web, NYPL
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Library Services for Mobile Development
At the LITA Forum 2009, Joan K. Lippincott from the Coalition for Networked Information, gave a nice keynote address on mobile web development for libraries, which you can listen to online (or go here to download the MP3). As I listened to it this morning on the subway, it made me wonder about two things:
- Does our library web site convey to our users in one central space all the “mobile services” that we offer? Should we? What would we list there?
- What should our vision of mobile web services look like? It’s likely that in the coming years we’ll want to provide a considerable amount of services and resources in a way that is optimized for mobile deveices. Which services and resources should we focus on first?
- The library web site. What does our library web site look like in a browser on mobile devices? Should we develop a slimmed down web site for the mobile web? Develop an app that people can download to their phones that offers key services and resources?
- Access to the catalog? Does it help that our users can use the mobile version of WorldCat.org to access our holdings info? Is that good enough? Can our Aleph 500 implementation be optimized for display on phones, etc.? As I was typing this post, a student showed me his phone with a list of call numbers he’d found in the catalog and typed into the notepad feature of his cell phone. Wouldn’t it have been nice if the catalog had a link next to the call number that would allow searchers to have the call number sent to their phones as a text message?
- Access to licensed resources? Which databases can be searched via mobile devices? Does Bearcat Search work on a mobile device?
- Access to Digital Media Library content? Will our videos play on their devices?
- Instructional tutorials?
- Ask a librarian? If we launch a text message reference service, this would provide an important connection to the population of students who rely on their phones as their main communication tool.
- Blackboard? Since we offer credit courses, what do our course sites in Blackboard look like on a smartphone?
- Interlibrary loan? Will it work on their devices? Does it display properly?
- Serials Solutions A-Z journal list and SFX. These are key tools to connect our users to licensed content.
- Online exhibits?
- Library borrower’s accounts in Aleph 500?
- Docutek course reserve system and the materials we’ve added as PDFs?
Lippincott, Joan K. “Mobile Technologies, Mobile Users: Will Libraries Mobilize?” LITA Forum 2009, Salt Lake City. 2 October 2009. Address. Web.
Tech Sharecase, 4 September 2009
interviewed Peter Brantley, director of the Internet Archive, who heads The Open Book Alliance’s opposition.
We started this Friday’s Tech Sharecase with a discussion of the recent news that Amazon, Microsoft & Yahoo will join the alliance opposing the Google Book Settlement. The Guardian Blog Posts: Reading & Written Language
New EtherPad Feature
Google Books Metadata Trainwreck article
Screenjelly
Text Messaging Reference Service