University Library Mobile Apps Quick Survey March 2011

University Library Mobile apps – quick survey March 2011

Timothy Collinson, University of Portsmouth,

March 2011

Method

Query posted on lis-link ()

Query posted to ~190 Twitter followers (not all librarians, but many)

Search on Apple’s iTunes store for ‘university library’ (Warwick the only hit!)

Search on Google for ‘mobile library app site:ac.uk’ (first 10 pages of hits examined)

Explicitly Library apps

University of Bedfordshire

http://www.bowkerinfo.com/offers/LibraryAnywhere/ & http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/libraryservices/whoweare/apps

Web and Publications officer at the University has developed an Android App in house using Google App inventor. This can be found here with information, a download link and a minute long video promoting the service: http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/android

Facility to search Library Catalogue using third party barcode scanners: http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/libraryservices/whoweare/apps/barcode

Finally, just purchased Library Anywhere from Library Thing which has been skinned and linked to our services:

http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/libraryservices/whoweare/apps

Cambridge Libraries

http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/toolbox/camlib.html

University of Portsmouth

Student built android app: https://market.android.com/details?id=org.mobilesilat.UoPLibrary

We have one replicating our Referencing@Portsmouth webpages (http://referencing.port.ac.uk/) for Apple iOS but not yet released.

University of Warwick

Apple http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/libraryapp-university-of-warwick/id423779720

University Apps (which have a library element)

Huddersfield University (library component)

http://www2.hud.ac.uk/about/visiting/uoh_mobile_application.php

This is the link to the University of Huddersfield App on our webpages http://www2.hud.ac.uk/cls/it/students/uoh_mobile_app.php

and here it is in iTunes http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/huddersfield-uniapp/id407350493?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

It's still in the developmental stage at the moment.

University of Leeds (unofficial and includes Library component)

https://market.android.com/details?id=net.status.lvp.leedsgo&feature=search_result

Manchester Metropolitan University

Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) has an i-Phone app version of it's MyMMU Portal - this app is connected to student's library records and allows them to check when their books are due, check on their reservations, fines etc. Details can be found here:

http://lrt.mmu.ac.uk/mymmu-mobile/about/

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id391326798?mt=8

the product of our Learning and Research Technologies dept, but they are working on Android/Blackberry compatible versions at the moment.

Roehampton

http://studentzone.roehampton.ac.uk/itservices/campusm/campusm.html

Sheffield University

CampusM “includes info on the library and a very very basic catalogue search”

http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/cics/campusm

Sheffield Hallam (library element)

http://elearningatshu.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/our-mobile-app-shugo-is-now-available/

St Andrews

http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/itsupport/mobile/msaint/

Stirling

https://m.stir.ac.uk/about/

We recently launched in beta a mobile web app called mStir. This incorporates some of the features that students wanted to access via a smart phone such as the library catalogue, availability of free PCs/Printers, plus our podcasting software of lectures (Listen Again). It can be seen here http://m.stir.ac.uk . It detects which phone you are using and presents you with a different version, so if you use a PC or an old phone you will get a text only version, but if you use a iphone/android phone, you will be presented with a much more involved GUI. Let me know if you require any more details. The software is all coded in house using a frame work called WebOSP.

Sussex

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/its/services/informationandsupport/helpdesk/sussexmobile

UCL

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/isd/students/mobile/ucl-go

Westminster

http://www.westminster.ac.uk/home/students/app

University of Worcester

Looking at CampusM as well (and kindly provided URL: http://ombiel.com/campusm.html)

Directed to URL, but wasn’t able to find Library app

(but often a library section in more general university app)

Uni of Bristol: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/is/library

Liverpool John Moores

http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/

possibly referring to: Uni app: http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/mobileapp/ which allows access to Library account amongst other things.

LSE Mobile

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/id366637697?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D6 – library bit in development

University of Oxford: http://m.ox.ac.uk/desktop/

and yes, I know I asked for UK, but had these pointers sent as well!

National University of Ireland, Maynooth: http://www.nuim.ie/

We have app store and android versions of our app available. The easiest way to find them is to search in both places for Maynooth.

They are both basic and free. They are basic as it was intended as a start but also because in the first instance just getting approval from Apple can be time consuming the first time. Finally of course we had a very limited budget.

The app's functionality includes library opening times, a catalogue search, news and contact. While this would address the most popular uses of our web site, one learning experience is that users of smartphones have high expectations.

The formal launch of the app will take place in April. It will be one of a number of mobile services we will be offering all of which are at beta stage.

The others are mobile e- resources, use of qr codes and SMS integration into the catalogue.

North Carolina State University http://www.ncsu.edu/ where I found:

http://admissions.ncsu.edu/blogs/uncategorized/nc-state-campus-tours-there%E2%80%99s-an-app-for-that/ and

http://news.lib.ncsu.edu/2010/08/11/nc-state-time-machine-now-available-as-iphone-app/

Nifty mobile video element from Purdue (USA):

http://www.itap.purdue.edu/studio/

Useful reading:

http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/images/7/76/Mobile_Web_Apps.pdf

There were several papers at ILI 2010 which talked about Library apps. e.g. Esben Fjord from Gladsaxe Public Libraries :

http://www.internet-librarian.com/2010/speakers.php?speaker=EsbenFjord

http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue65/ili-2010-rpt/#b103

http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue65/ili-2010-rpt/#b202

Briefing from OSS-Watch - may have useful background info:

http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/appstores.xml?style=printable