I. Exchanging Ideas and Helping Others
I recently posted a Facebook entry for work about Jill Erickson (meet Jill in my post about Twitter). Jill was interviewed on NPR last week about the precarious relationship between libraries and publishers due to e-books. While it is true that the aims of libraries and businesses may be viewed as polar opposites, sometimes the relationship works.
Case in point: Cuyahoga County Public Library and Boopsie.
CCPL set the goal of being “the most convenient public library in the nation,” so one objective the staff sought to achieve was to meet their customers “on their own terms.” Together, the CCPL and Boopsie developed a mobile app that allows patrons to check out items with their smart phones, all the patron has to do is scan a barcode. (Los Angeles Public Library does this, too, known as “LAPL to Go”) As Jim Haprian, the information technology director of CCPL, states:
We decided to pursue a mobile app for our library because we feel mobile technologies present an excellent opportunity to expand our reach to new and existing customers…We spend a lot of time thinking about how we can deliver better service, and we feel that nobody knows our customers as well as we do…We wanted to work with a vendor that understood and respected our knowledge as library professionals… (Kahl 26)
While this is a great example of librarians exerting their expertise and finding businesses that respect them and are willing to work them; it is also a perfect example of libraries understanding their users, assessing their library services, and keeping up with technology.
Now that is exchanging ideas and helping others! (a.k.a. collaborating in order to better serve the patron.)
On the other hand, Lorcan Dempsey’s "Always On: Libraries in a World of Permanent Connectivity" is, in my mind, an article that I will most assuredly refer to again. It is not only comprehensive; but it, too, emphasizes why libraries must exchange ideas about using mobile technology in terms of helping our users gain access to the information and services that they seek: “The library cannot expect its users to build their workflow around the library; it must reach out into the workflows its users are creating on the network. This means providing a higher level of network– and mobile–ready services than now exists.”
In other words, we need to be flexible, open-minded, and willing….
II. A Willingness to Believe in Anything that is Good, New, and Useful
“…the technical challenges that crop up while creating and maintaining a mobile site are minor when compared with the potential benefits for and goodwill from our users when we create and provide user-centered services like mobile applications.”
Kim Griggs, Laurie M. Bridges, Hannah Gascho Rempel
Grant it, “library/mobile: Tips on Designing and Developing Mobile Web Sites” by Griggs et al. is—at least at this point—beyond my grasp due to the discussion of code and coding. However, because I do possess a willingness to believe in anything that is good, new, and useful, especially for maintaining the mission of library; I would certainly try to muddle through the “challenges that crop up” with mobile technology—even coding!
Cool mobile technology stuff:
· Library card barcodes on smart phones.
· Text-a-librarian.
VERY cool mobile technology stuff:
· Geocaching in libraries (as described by the Shifted Librarian)
As a personal aside on mobile technology:
"One clear development is a blurring of our social, business, learning and educational lives as the pattern of our communication and interaction across time and space changes." (Dempsey)
The blurred state of being "always on" at work, at home, at school, and in between is, indeed, a little daunting!
Dempsey, Lorcan. "Always On: Libraries in a World of Permanent Connectivity." First Monday. 14. (2009): n. page. Web. 26 Feb. 2012.
Griggs, Kim, Laurie M. Bridges, et al. "library/mobile: Tips on Designing and Developing Mobile Web Sites."
Code{4}Lib Journal. 8 (2009): n. page. Web. 26 Feb. 2012.
Kahl, Pamela, and Roberta Rua. "Cuyahoga County Checks Out Boopsie's Checkout App." American Libraries. 42.11/12 (2011): 26. Print.
