Going Mobile at Illinois:Opportunities for anEnhanced Mobile Experience

Josh Bishoff,University of Illinois

RUSA MARS Hot Topics @ ALA,6/26/2010

 

 

Mobile tasks

• Find books.• Find libraries.• Find librarians. • Find articles.

Mobile Device Challenges

• App or Mobile Website?– Website. Trust me.

• Only one column for content– We have gotten used to having, say, 3.

• Unpredictable support for styles, JavaScript, AJAX

• Differing user interfaces: cursor, finger

Quick Shout-Outs

 

Libraries open now

 

Library Details 

Cutting down the Catalog

Cutting Down the Catalog (2)

XML to Mobile

• Only the most important data

• Big clickable areas (to anticipate fingers, not necessarily cursors)

The Catalog

 

Holdings Maps

 

Virtual New Bookshelf• http://www.library.illinois.edu/newtitle

s/

New Bookshelf

Bus Data

Preliminary user feedback/ log data

• Patrons make frequent typos when entering search terms

• Patrons generally use fewer search terms (I think—data is inconclusive), prefer keyword searching

• Good success with known-item searching

• Patrons want more content

The smartphone landscape

 

App or Webapp?

Apps:• cool• can leverage the hardware 

o the filesystem, location-based services, user content, other applications

• Will only work on the platform you chose (Android, Iphone)

WebApps:• Less cool• Run on everything• Less time to write • Can be accomplished with

existing skills/structures, just smaller screens, different tasks

Buy or Build?

• Build– If your library already develops its own web

presence & works with catalog data, mobile development fits into that workflow—and it informs & improves your entire web presence. We’re not suddenly talking about outsourcing all web development; why would we outsource mobile?

Ask-A-Librarian 

Electronic Reserves